Waste Recyclers Cooperative Multipurpose Society

13/06/2026

13/06/2026

We note the protests in Lagos today, including banners reading “TINUBU HAS FAILED NIGERIA”.

Community Agenda for Peace stands with every citizen’s right to peaceful expression under Section 39 & 40 of the Constitution. Anger at hardship is valid. Silence is not an option.

However, anger without direction becomes destruction. Destruction destroys the same communities we seek to protect.

We call on all citizens:
Be solutions-minded in your anger. Channel frustration into action that builds, not burns.

1. Demand: Hold government accountable for SDG 16 - Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions.

2. Deliver: Start one solution in your street, school, or LGA this week. Jobs. Waste sorting. Community watch.

Protest makes governments listen. Solutions build nations.

Let us turn citizens’ anger into national solutions. Peacefully. Constructively. Together.

13/06/2026

Solutions Activism Manifesto

From Community Agenda for Peace

Nigeria doesn’t have anger problem. We have a solutions problem.

Anger trends for 24hrs. Solutions build for 24 years.

So we pledge: We will protest bad governance AND prototype good governance.

We will ask for security AND create jobs through circular economy. We will tag Verydarkblackman Omoyele Sowore for voice AND tag Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Nigeria Police Force National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control for standards.

Your turn: Comment 1 SOLUTION you’ll push in your street this week. Not a complaint. A solution.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1ADWwCCg12/

10/06/2026

50 followers. 50 peace builders. 🎉

Thank you for believing in *Community Agenda for Peace* this early.

But we need more voices to do more work.
More shares = more communities reached.
More comments = more ideas heard.

Help us hit 100 this week?
Follow. Tag 2 friends. Share this post.

Peace grows when we grow. Let’s go.👇

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CkbLWBWWb/

09/06/2026

Solutions Journalism for Africa

Big news for African media!

The future of storytelling is shifting from what’s breaking to what’s working.

We are thrilled to announce the Sustainable Development Media Forum, a powerhouse gathering co-convened by the Community Agenda for Peace, the Centre for Media and Peace Initiative (New York), and the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC), Abuja.

This isn't just another media conference. This is a launchpad for Solutions Journalism for Africa.

Journalists | Creators | Newsrooms

The stories we tell shape the future we build. Let’s tell the whole story—including the parts where we win.

Be part of the movement that changes how the world sees Africa, and how Africa sees itself. Let’s build a media ecosystem that doesn’t just expose problems, but empowers people. 💡

09/06/2026

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Community Agenda for Peace (CAP) hosted a CSO Roundtable on Free Movement and Migration for tourists, business travelers, academics, and conference delegates. The session addressed key measures to help travelers avoid traps that could derail their journey.

We shared tips for tourists, business & academic travelers to avoid scams and snares that ruin trips. Safe, legal, dignified travel matters.

09/06/2026

WHY CITIZENS MUST OVERSIGHT POLICING AND SECURITY: THE CASE FOR C.O.P.S IN NIGERIA

As Community Agenda for Peace Launches Citizens Oversighting Policing and Security (COPS)

Nigeria’s security quagmire has one recurring symptom: distance. The distance between citizens and those hired to protect them. Between security votes and actual security. Between police stations and public trust.

That distance is where conflict breeds.

This is why Community Agenda for Peace is launching *Citizens Oversighting Policing and Security (COPS)* — not as a protest, but as a policy intervention. Because peace in Nigeria today will not come from more guns alone. It will come from more oversight.

1. Trust Is Nigeria’s Scarcest Security Resource
Data from CLEEN Foundation and Afrobarometer shows it clearly: less than 30% of Nigerians trust the police. Yet effective policing depends on intelligence, and intelligence depends on trust.

When a mother in Awka fears reporting her cultist son because the DPO might extort or kill him, she stays silent. When a farmer in Ayamelum won’t call police on herders because last time officers sided with the highest bidder, the next clash is inevitable.

Oversight restores trust by making policing visible. Monthly Community-Police Review Meetings, public complaint dashboards, and co-signed security spending turn the police from an occupying force into a community service. COPS is built on that premise.

2. Abuse Thrives in Darkness. Oversight Is Light.
The protests of 2020 were not just about SARS. They were about a system where citizens had no institutional way to question power. The Judicial Panels were post-mortem. COPS is preventive.

Citizens oversight means:
- You can see how many complaints your DPO received last month and how many were resolved.
- You can verify where your LGA’s ₦20m security vote went.
- You can grade your DPO on civility and response time without fear of victimization.

Accountability is not anti-police. It is pro-peace. An officer who knows he will answer to a review board of landlords, traders, and youth leaders thinks twice before pulling a trigger or taking a bribe.

3. Security Votes Without Oversight Become Conflict Fuel
Nigeria’s 36 states and 774 LGAs spend over ₦300bn annually on “security votes” — largely unaudited. In many communities, projects that should reduce conflict end up causing it because contractors ignore local dynamics.

COPS demands a simple policy shift: *20% Citizen Sign-Off.* Part of every LGA security vote should be co-managed with CSOs and community reps. When youth monitors are paid to secure a road project, they protect it. When women groups co-approve funds for streetlights in hotspots, crime drops.

Security has a budget. Oversight ensures it’s not stolen.

4. The Quagmire Is Local. So Must Be the Solution
Banditry in Zamfara, separatist agitation in the Southeast, farmer-herder clashes in the Middle Belt — none of these have a one-size Abuja solution. They have 774 local solutions.

A DPO in Nnewi faces different threats than one in Birnin-Gwari. COPS localizes security governance. It asks: What worked in Ogidi to cut pre-trial detention by 60%? Can Onitsha copy it? This is solutions journalism applied to security — document what’s working and scale it.

5. Oversight Is a Constitutional Duty, Not a Favour
Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution says “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” Section 24 says citizens have duties too — including “helping law enforcement agencies.”

COPS operationalizes that social contract. It moves citizens from passive victims of insecurity to active shareholders in peace.

*What COPS Will Do Immediately*

Starting this October, Community Agenda for Peace will roll out COPS in 3 pilot LGAs in Lagos State through:

1. : Weekly public dashboards of police complaints vs resolutions.
2. : Monthly citizen grading of DPOs live on social media.
3. : FOI-backed tracking of LGA security spending.
4. Know Your Rights in 60 Secs: Reels that reduce the triggers of police-civilian clashes.

The goal is not to shame. It is to show. Show the DPOs who are working. Show the LGAs where oversight cut crime. Show policymakers a model they can adopt before 2027.

The Bottom Line
Nigeria has tried curfews, military ops, and amnesty deals. The quagmire remains because we keep outsourcing peace to men with guns while citizens stand at a distance.

If we want to resolve this quagmire peacefully, we must do what democracies do: watch the watchmen. Because a police force overseen by the people it serves is a police force that can secure peace.

Community Agenda for Peace invites LGA Chairs, DPOs, traditional rulers, and citizens to sign the Citizens Security Oversight Charter this November. The question is no longer “who will secure us?” The question is: “are you ready to co-secure your community?”

Amb. Obuesi Phillips
Executive Director, Community Agenda for Peace
5th June 2026

Editor’s Note: Want to bring COPS to your LGA? Join the campaign. DM with “COPS” to get the Charter

09/06/2026

The Following

DEMOCRACY WITHOUT CITIZENS IS DEMOCRACY WITHOUT DIVIDENDS

Analysis by Community Agenda for Peace | 5th June 2026

The Hard Truth After 27 Years

After 27 years of uninterrupted democratic rule, Nigeria must confront a brutal fact: we have practiced democracy without citizens.

We have held elections without inclusion. Passed budgets without oversight. Announced policies without feedback. And now we wonder why insecurity rises, poverty deepens, and trust collapses.

Democracy without citizens is just elite rotation. It produces governors, but not governance. It produces laws, but not order. It produces elections, but not dividends.

1. Where Are the Citizens in Our Democracy?

Look at the evidence:

A. In Security: ₦300bn is spent yearly as “security votes” across 36 states and 774 LGAs. Yet 3.4 million Nigerians are displaced and 3,620 were kidnapped in Q1 2026 alone. Why? Because security is planned in Government Houses, not in town halls. Citizens don’t co-sign how the money is spent, so it doesn’t buy their safety.

B. In Budgeting: Only 11 states publish full details of their budgets online. LGA allocations disappear between Abuja and the council secretariat. Citizens cannot track what was promised versus what was delivered. A democracy where people can’t follow the money will never deliver roads, schools, or hospitals.

C. In Elections: INEC reports 93 million registered voters. But 2023 turnout was 27%. 73% of citizens stayed home. Not because they love military rule, but because they believe their vote won’t change their clinic, their school fees, or whether bandits tax their village.

D. In Policy: Fuel subsidy was removed. Naira was floated. Cashless policy was enforced. All necessary reforms. All done _to_ citizens, not _with_ citizens. No town halls. No feedback loops. No social safety nets ready. The result is reform fatigue and mass anger.

2. The Cost of Exclusion: No Dividends, Only Disasters

A democracy that excludes citizens pays for it in three currencies:

A. Insecurity: When citizens don’t trust police, they don’t give intel. When youth don’t see government jobs, banditry becomes employment. Democracy without citizens creates the vacuum that non-state actors govern.

B. Illegitimacy: When 27 years of voting doesn’t stop abductions in Kuriga or floods in Bayelsa, people stop believing in the system. That is how coups become popular in the Sahel. That is how separatist agitation finds oxygen here.

C. Waste: World Bank says Nigeria loses 40% of project value to poor citizen engagement. Roads without drainage. Hospitals without drugs. Boreholes without water. Projects done for people, not by people, fail.

3. The CAP Principle: Citizens Are the Dividend

Community Agenda for Peace holds one position: The only way to get dividends from democracy is to put citizens back inside it

Dividends are not gifts from politicians. Dividends are returns on citizen investment. Investment of time, taxes, trust, and oversight.

4. It Is Time for Citizens to Begin Oversighting Policing and Security

This is the missing link. Peace has remained fragile because the people who suffer insecurity have no institutional role in managing security.

Therefore, CAP declares: The era of blind security votes is over. The era of Citizens Oversighting Policing and Security (COPS) begins now.

And in this case most especially, citizens must oversight the Security Votes of elected and appointed public office holders.

For 27 years, governors, LGA chairs, and security chiefs have collected and spent billions in security votes with zero public accounting. Yet communities buy their own vigilante guns. Villages pay bandit levies. DPOs say “no fuel to respond."

That contradiction ends when citizens watch the watchmen.

What Oversighting Security Votes Means:
1. Monthly Public Disclosure: Every LGA Chair and Governor must publish what was received and spent from the security vote. Line by line.
2. 20% Citizen Sign-Off: No security contract, no procurement, no cash release from the vote without written approval from a Community Security Oversight Committee of CSOs, traditional rulers, and youth leaders.
3. Complaint-to-Cash Link: If your DPO resolved 42 cases last month, his station gets operational funds. If he resolved 4, citizens ask why before more money drops. .

You cannot spend public money to secure the public and hide the spending from the public. That is not democracy. That is a racket.

5. How We Return Citizens to Democracy

A. Mandate Oversight, Not Applause
Every LGA must adopt a *Citizens Security Oversight Charter*. Monthly Community-Police Review Meetings. Public dashboards tracking complaints resolved, projects delivered, security votes spent. If citizens see the books, they will defend the system.

B. Budget From the Street Up
Before any state budget is passed, it must have signed inputs from ward-level town halls. Let traders in Onitsha Main Market say where the next drainage should go. Let farmers in Ayamelum vote on which feeder road opens first. That is how you get ownership.

C. Tie Elections to Service Delivery
INEC and NOA should publish a “Dividend Scorecard” 6 months before every election: How many boreholes worked? How many DPOs scored above 60% by citizens? How many security votes were publicly accounted for? Let 2027 be contested on delivery, not defection.

D. Pay Citizens to Participate
ASWRA proved it: When you pay waste pickers, they clean the city. When you pay youth monitors to oversee security projects, contractors don’t abandon police posts. Democracy needs a stipend. Civic duty must have dignity.

6. The Choice Before 2027

Nigeria’s political class is already campaigning for 2027. But citizens are asking a different question: _“What did 1999 to 2026 deliver for my village?”_

If the answer remains “policies announced,” then 2027 will be another elite rotation. Turnout will drop again. Fragility will deepen.

But if governments start measuring success by visible outcomes co-signed by citizens — a police station that responds, a budget that builds, a security vote that is accounted for — then democracy will finally pay dividends.

Closing: The New Social Contract

The contract of 1999 was “we vote, you rule.” That contract is broken.

The new contract must be: “we oversee, you deliver.”

Democracy without citizens is a stadium without spectators. The game goes on, but it means nothing.

Community Agenda for Peace calls on President Tinubu, all 36 Governors, and LGA Chairs: _Bring citizens into the room before 2027. Start with your security votes. Or risk holding an election to govern a country that no longer believes in you._

Because in the end, democracy without citizens is democracy without dividends. And democracy without dividends will not survive.

Community Agenda for Peace (CAP) drives solutions journalism and civic oversight across Nigeria. Join