By Nkasi Wodu, PIND’s Peace Building Coordinator 

Recently Bayelsa State Partners for Peace received funding from the Fund for Peace/United States Institute of Peace to implement a program aimed at mitigating election related violence in the State Gubernatorial Elections.

The Chapter joined other partners and organizations to bring the candidates to a debate to talk about their policies. Perhaps the highlight of the debate was the P4P Peace wall which candidates and their supporters signed as a commitment to ensure peaceful elections in the state. Presently, the Peace Wall is still standing at the event center and one of the P4P partners; Royal FM has been making announcements to Bayelsans to follow in the candidates’ footsteps to sign the Peace Wall as a sign of their commitment to peaceful elections.

Secondly, the chapter brought several stakeholders together to a roundtable. Amongst the stakeholders were; Ex Militants, Youth Leaders representing the 3 major political parties across the 8 LGAs, security operatives and INEC. The highlight was the signing of a Peace Accord by the Youth Leaders of the parties to reaffirm the earlier pact signed by the candidates on the 10^th of November 2015. The Youth Leaders of the various parties from each LGA took each other’s’ numbers to engage each other on ensuring peace during the elections.