By localising empowerment, Nigerian women are shaping peace
By Precious Obi
As the world marked 25 years since the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), the milestone invites not just global reflection, but local introspection. In Nigeria, a country grappling with insurgency, communal violence, banditry and post-conflict fragility, the WPS agenda finds its most powerful expression not in conference halls, but in communities where women are quietly shaping peace in culturally grounded ways.
Nigeria’s peace building landscape, particularly in conflict-affected regions such as the North-East, North-West and parts of the Middle Belt, mirrors a central truth of the WPS agenda: peace is built both at negotiation tables and in everyday life. From Borno to Plateau, women have played critical roles as mediators, caregivers, organisers, educators and economic anchors in communities strained by violence and displacement.
Yet, as with other non-Western contexts, empowerment in Nigeria does not always align with the liberal, individual-centred models often promoted in international frameworks. Here, empowerment is largely relational. Women draw legitimacy and influence from family structures, faith institutions, traditional leadership systems and community networks. Rather than acting outside these systems, many Nigerian women work within them, reshaping norms from the inside.
This approach is evident among women peace builders who mediate farmer–herder conflicts, lead women’s cooperatives in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, or partner with religious leaders to counter violent extremism. Their leadership may not always be formal or visible, but it is deeply consequential. These everyday acts represent a locally rooted feminism, adaptive, pragmatic and oriented toward social cohesion rather than confrontation.
Importantly, Nigerian women are not a homogenous group. The experiences of widows of insurgency, female ex-combatants, urban professionals, rural traders, traditional title holders and young activists differ significantly. Treating “women as peace builders” as a single category risks flattening these realities and undermining the effectiveness of peace interventions. Sustainable peace requires policies that recognise this diversity and respond to it intentionally.
In Nigeria’s deeply patriarchal context, women’s empowerment cannot advance in isolation from men. Gender norms, reinforced by culture, religion and economic pressures, continue to shape access to leadership and decision-making. Transforming masculinities and engaging men as allies is therefore essential to inclusive peace building.
Encouragingly, there are growing examples of collaboration between women and male religious, traditional and community leaders. In several northern communities, progressive imams and pastors have partnered with women’s groups to address gender-based violence, promote girls’ education and support reconciliation initiatives. By framing women’s participation within religious and cultural values of justice, compassion and community well-being, these male allies help legitimise women’s leadership without positioning it as a threat to tradition.
Such partnerships demonstrate that reform does not have to be externally imposed. When local norms are engaged critically, they become dynamic forces capable of questioning their own hierarchies. Engaging men as allies rather than gatekeepers strengthens local ownership of the WPS agenda and enhances its sustainability.
In Nigeria, localisation of the WPS agenda must go beyond translating global norms into local language. It must be understood as transformation. Women and community leaders are actively reshaping WPS principles to align with indigenous governance systems, faith-based ethics and lived realities.
Nigeria has made formal commitments to the WPS agenda through its National Action Plans. However, implementation must engage more deeply with how empowerment is understood and practised on the ground. This means recognising informal leadership roles, such as women mediating disputes, managing community resources or organising collective responses to crises, roles that rarely feature in official statistics but are central to peace building.
Monitoring frameworks should therefore move beyond counting women in formal positions to capturing qualitative shifts: increased influence in household decisions, stronger community voice, reduced tolerance for violence and more equitable social norms. Engaging male allies, supporting gender-sensitive reintegration of ex-combatants and investing in women’s economic resilience are all critical components of this approach.
The Nigerian experience underscores a broader lesson for global peacebuilding: inclusion is not merely about numbers, but about transformation. Sustainable peace is not imported; it is cultivated. When local knowledge leads and both women and men are engaged as partners, peace frameworks become more inclusive, legitimate and enduring.
Across Nigeria, women continue to demonstrate that peace often grows through quiet acts of care, negotiation and persistence. Rooted in faith, community and resilience, their leadership challenges conventional definitions of power and security. In doing so, they remind policymakers and practitioners alike that the future of peace lies not in one-size-fits-all solutions, but in locally grounded, collectively sustained action.
- Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi, CEO of Do Take Action is an independent consultant on edtech, climate change, public policy, and women’s procurement empowerment.
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