Create Ministry of Family Affairs- Gen. Williams

Foremost leading representative of Transparency International in Nigeria, General Williams Ishola on Tuesday charged President Muhammadu Buhari to replace the Ministry of Women Affairs with a Ministry of Family Affairs if the government is to effectively address the root causes of violence and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the North-east of Nigeria.Speaking at a media roundtable on the theme: “Addressing the root causes of violence and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Northeast of Nigeria” Organised by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), in collaboration with the Ford Foundation, the retired Major-General said, “We need to urgently redefine politics and power and the linkage between the two with money. In addition, faith, beliefs and action require two-pronged approach: counter narratives in terms of beliefs, and guidance and role models in terms of action without politics. It is also important to emphasize family (e.g. Ministry of Family Affairs instead of Women Affairs) with emphasis equally on girl-child and boy-child. We cannot continue to ignore the key role of boys and young men in perpetrating conflict.“We must transform the hands that kill, maim and destroy into hands that can save and rebuild. We must do away with all the jargons in terms of peace-keeping, peace-making, peace-building, conflict transformation, etc and come up with innovative sustainable framework for crises/conflict prevention and mitigation at local and national level. For Nigeria, continuous political restructuring with emphasis on subsidiarity is absolutely important.“A new institutional arrangement is required at a national and regional level to make life better for IDPs, returnees, persons of concern and victims of terrorism. The bottom-line: get them back to their villages of origin and work military and volunteers to rebuild their lives.”Chairman of the occasion, and Justice of Lagos division of the Court of Appeal, Justice Samuel Oseji requested for proper coordination of the victims of Boko Haram to enable them have access to medical treatment and other necessary support.The judge also criticised what he termed the financial recklessness of the country’s leaders, just as he called on citizens and civil society organisations to ask questions on allocations of budgets and for what purposes the country’s resources and wealth are being spent.