John Cardinal Onaiyekan has called on the Federal Government to defuse the tension that had arisen in the country in recent times, and to restore peace and security. The Cardinal made this call in Abuja while declaring open the Welcome Dinner of the Second Set of the Cardinal Onaiyekan Foundation for Peace (COFP) 2019/2020 Fellowship Programme on Interreligious Dialogue and Mediation on July 1st, 2019 at Ajuji Greenwich Hotel.
The program, which aims at uniting people across divides, focuses on bringing to the consciousness of people that they can work together to find solutions, overcome divisions, build common grounds and promote peace in their various communities. Our Fellowship program is one of the first of its kind in Nigeria and has graduated her 35 COFP Pioneer Fellows of 2018 Class on April 5th, 2019 after a one-year intensive program which ran from July, 2018 to April, 2019. As one of the conditions for graduation, each of the Fellows implemented a peace project in their communities as a way of stepping down the training received over a period of one-year. To wrap-up this one-year program, the 35 Fellows received the Cardinal Onaiyekan Foundation for Peace Certificate in “Interreligious Dialogue and Mediation” issued by Veritas University, Abuja, as well as Awards as Ambassadors of Peace. In order to continue with this peacebuilding program, the Foundation has selected another 34 COFP Fellows through a competitive process for the second year of the one-year Fellowship Program (July 2019-April 2020). These participants cut across Muslim and Christian religious faithful, including women and youth from different cultural backgrounds.
This COFP Fellowship program is funded by the GHR Foundation based in the United States and the German Federal Foreign Office. Other partners are the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Veritas University, Islamic Education Trust, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Interfaith Mediation Centre, among others.