2nd March, 2024
The European Union Deputy Head of Mission to Nigeria, Zissimos Vergos, has called for a new approach to dealing with criminality in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.
Vergos said this during the launch of a peace promotion project, tagged ”A Community centred approach to transforming criminality and violence in the Niger Delta”.
The project was by a consortium of partners led by the Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in Niger Delta (PIND); Search for Common Ground (SFCG); Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN) and Academic Associates Peace Works (AAPW) and funded by the EU in Abuja.
Speaking Vergos said: “We all know we cannot address the structural problems of the Niger Delta region directly, but what we can do is highlight the paradigm shift and the theory of change that can convince a lot of people.
“Out of our interest in seeing Nigeria achieve its status as the giant of Africa, what we can do as a partner is bring resources to the table so that Nigerian partners can work around their challenges. This is very important to highlight.
“Through this process, we are learning because we definitely don’t come around to historical problems pretending that we fully understand the solution. What we know and bring from our societies is that inclusive societies do better.
“The EU supports inclusive community approaches to address systemic drivers of violence in the Niger Delta region.”