Women Centre for Self-Empowerment and Development (WOCSED), a non-governmental organisation, has called for collaborative efforts of stakeholders and all Nigerians to ensure security and peace in the country.

The Coordinator of WOSCED, Mrs Onyeka Obi, made the call during the NGO’s workshop to commemorate its International Peace Day in Enugu on Thursday.

The event, which has as its theme. “Climate Action for Peace”, was used to launch a peace-initiative magazine called “DOVE” and erect a Peace Pole at Ogui by the 82 Division Roundabout in Enugu.

Mrs. Obi said that government and individuals in the country must be prepared to first eradicate every situation that causes conflict.

She expressed the need for increased investment in labour, power and agriculture, adding that government should also address the plight of the vulnerable persons in the society.

The WOSCED coordinator tasked the three tiers of government to address the basic needs of the people, including pipe-borne water, electricity, good road, health care, education and housing, to make like more meaningful.

She also called for measures to strengthen the education sector and include peace and conflict resolution as compulsory courses in the curriculum for secondary and tertiary institutions.

Also speaking, the Enugu State Coordinator of the National Environmental Standard and Regulation Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Mr. Pele Egbegari, advised Nigerians to take proactive measures, including the planting of five trees to replace one felled tree, to check flooding.

Egbegari, who was represented by a staff of the agency, Mrs Ogechukwu Onyebueke, presented a paper titled, “Climate action for peace”, said that climate change had caused migration with people moving from their country, state or region.

“The climate change has come to be, we cannot do anything to stop it completely but we can take action to either mitigate it or adapt to it. The answer to it is reforestation. Let us stop deforesting our plants, instead we should plant more,” he said.

Mrs Comfort Agboko, the South-East Zonal Commander of National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), advised youths to avoid being trafficked and turned into slaves in foreign lands by unscrupulous people related to them.

Agboko, who was represented by Mrs Chidiebere Ifudu, spoke on the topic “Being Conscious of Antics of Human Traffickers Around You”.

She warned that “there is a need for everybody to be alert so that no one takes advantage of you and send you into foreign land and you become a labour or sex slave making money for the bad fellow.”

A participant, Sandra Ossai, of Girls Secondary School, Uwani, said that the workshop had been impactful as she had been exposed to environmental and human trafficking issues bedeviling the country and the entire world.

A total of 46 students from six secondary schools in Enugu attended the workshop.

It would be recalled that the United Nations [UN] has set aside Sept. 21 each year as International Peace Day.

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