Expert Calls for Paradigm Shift in Peacebuilding: ‘From Gown to Town’ to Tackle Nigeria’s Persistent Conflicts

By Tgnews Reporter

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In a compelling presentation titled “Transitioning from Gown to Town: A Practitioner’s Perspective on Building Peace in Non-Permissive Contexts”, Dr. Paul Nyulaku, a leading peacebuilding expert and Founder/Executive Director of Triple Peace Africa (associated with Fortress360 LLC), urged scholars, practitioners, and institutions to rethink conventional approaches to peace in volatile environments.

Dr. Nyulaku, who holds a PhD in Defence and Strategic Studies and has extensive experience in Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR), stabilisation, and countering violent extremism across Nigeria and the Lake Chad region, argued that traditional peacebuilding theories—often developed in academic “gown” settings—are increasingly inadequate for today’s fragmented, persistent, and criminalised conflicts.

He highlighted that modern conflicts, particularly in regions like North-East and North-West Nigeria, the Lake Chad Basin, and the Sahel, are no longer linear or strictly post-war.

Instead, violence is ongoing, communities live “inside” it, state legitimacy remains contested, and multiple armed and security actors coexist.

In such “non-permissive contexts,” classical assumptions such as peace following a predictable sequence, DDR occurring only after conflict ends, or communities readily accepting former fighters often fail under real-world strain.

The core question Dr. Nyulaku posed resonates deeply: How do we build peace when the conditions for peace do not yet exist?

Drawing from field “town” knowledge gained through implementation, he emphasised practical lessons: entry into violence varies widely, exit pathways must be credible, safe, and socially oriented before economic ones, while trauma, stigma, fear, and legitimacy outweigh mere incentives. Peace, he stressed, is not “delivered” by external actors but negotiated and maintained locally.

Critiquing dominant DDR models, Dr. Nyulaku noted that without justice mechanisms, reintegration efforts can trigger backlash, and transitions remain partial, reversible, and unpredictable.

He advocated bridging practice to implementation science in peacebuilding systematically testing interventions under constraints, learning from failures, and designing adaptable, scalable models rather than chasing untested “best practices.”

Nigeria, he declared, serves as a “living laboratory” for global peacebuilding innovation. With overlapping conflict types, complex federal-state-community dynamics, and active experimentation in DDR, Community Violence Reduction (CVR), and other programmes, the country is not merely a case study but a generator of new theory.

In a bold call for reverse flow from “town” (practice) to “gown” (academia) Dr. Nyulaku challenged universities to study processes (not just outcomes), treat communities as co-producers of knowledge, embed ethically with practitioners, and train future scholars as systems thinkers focused on implementation.

He specifically urged the Centre for Peace and Security Studies (CPSS) at Modibbo Adama University (MAU), Yola, to emerge as a hub for practice-driven peace research. Recommendations include fostering practitioner-scholar exchanges, producing African-led peacebuilding models, and training the next generation in implementation science.

The presentation concluded with a powerful final thought: “Peacebuilding theory must return to the field not to follow it, but to learn from it.”

Dr. Nyulaku’s insights come amid ongoing efforts to address banditry, violent extremism, and criminal governance in northern Nigeria, where innovative, context-specific approaches are urgently needed.

His perspective underscores a growing consensus that sustainable peace in challenging environments demands humility, localisation, and collaboration between academia, practitioners, and communities.