In a bid to check project abandonment, litigation, and community friction across the region, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has organised a three-day capacity-building sensitization programme on conflict sensitivity and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) application for hundreds of its contractors and consultants.
Speaking while declaring the workshop open in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, the Executive Director, Corporate Services of the NDDC, Chief Ifedayo Abegunde, who represented the Commission’s Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Chief Samuel Ogbuku, stressed that conflict may be inevitable during project implementation, but its escalation remains preventable.
‘This programme is founded on a simple but important understanding: conflict may be inevitable, but its escalation is not.
‘In the course of implementing development projects, disagreements will sometimes arise over payment, variations, designs, timelines, quality of work, measurements, access to sites, contractual obligations, and relationships with host communities. What matters is how quickly and professionally such disagreements are identified and managed,’ Ogbuku stated.
He emphasized that stalled projects impose severe social costs on host communities, urging contractors to act as first-line peacebuilders.
‘For the NDDC, every project represents more than a contract. Behind every road is a community waiting for access. Behind every bridge is an economic opportunity. Behind every school, health facility, or other intervention is a human need. When conflict stalls a project, the real cost is borne by the people who are waiting for development,’ he noted.
Clarifying the Commission’s intent, the NDDC chief added: ‘Let me make one thing clear: ADR is not about avoiding accountability, nor is it about compromising legitimate contractual or legal rights. It is about addressing problems intelligently, proportionately, and as early as possible before they become more expensive, more complicated, and more damaging.’
Echoing these sentiments, the Director of the ADR Department at the NDDC, Mr. Ogedegbe Godwin, noted that the workshop came at a critical juncture in the region’s socio-economic evolution.
‘The Niger Delta, with its rich resources and vibrant communities, has long been a focal point of national development efforts. Yet, it is equally a region where the complexities of social, economic, and environmental realities often give rise to tensions and disputes,’ Godwin remarked. ‘As contractors and consultants, your ability to integrate conflict-sensitive approaches and ADR frameworks into project execution will determine not only the success of individual projects, but also the sustainability of development in the Niger Delta as a whole.’
Delivering the keynote address, a conflict scholar, Professor Isaac Albert asserted that technical competence alone cannot guarantee project success if host community relations are neglected.
‘NDDC projects in the Niger Delta must integrate conflict sensitivity and ADR into everyday project execution not as emergency fixes, but as core delivery disciplines,’ Prof. Albert argued. ‘Projects are executed twice-first in plans and contracts, then in community relationships. Managing only the technical side may deliver an asset, but lose the trust needed to sustain it.’
He outlined a practical six-step response mechanism for managing disputes on site: Stabilise, Diagnose, Convene, Agree on the process, Resolve and record, and Learn, while calling on contractors to establish live conflict-risk registers and dedicated community-relations focal personnel before site mobilisation.
‘Peace is not an accessory to project delivery; it is part of the infrastructure we are building,’ the professor concluded.