Discussants, weekend, urged insurgents in the Niger Delta area and the Boko Haram Islamic sect, to embrace dialogue as a way of making their grievances known to the Federal Government and stakeholders in the oil and gas industry.
The discursse, organised by Okpe Youth Association in Warri, Delta State, noted that violence had never solved a problem rather, it had continuously wreak havoc on humanity.
One of the discussants, Mrs. E. Onokpasa, in her paper entitled, Dialogue as a Better Weapon than Violence, said dialogue can lead to reduction in misunderstanding, conflicts and tension.
She noted that dialogue “brings about the enabling environment for arriving at the solutions to problems. When effectively deployed, it can successfully bring together people who would not ordinarily sit down to talk issue over.
It is thus a process through which people from different spheres of life successfully relate in a progressive fashion towards the settlement of problems.”
A Delta State University, Abraka don, Mr. Wesley Ekpekurede, on his part, said, “generally, dialogue is considered a veritable weapon due to certain factors.
Firstly, dialogue in its objective form has to do with communication. Dialogue is a two way communication. It is between two persons with divergent views as touching on an issue.
“Interestingly, both parties hold their beliefs as the correct opinion.
Thus in dialogue, both parties have to understand issues in the way they have not seen it before. Both parties must come to recognise and also respect the views expressed by the other.
“In the process of learning about the views of the other party, and come to grasp certain facts they have been oblivious of, and furthermore, they shuck off the misinformation about the other party. Also, dialogue helps us see and know who we really are. The other party becomes like a mirror with which the first party realizes itself.”
