Nathaniel Msen Awuapila was elected as an IPB Council member in October 2025.
Nathaniel Msen Awuapila is a peacebuilding strategist whose career spans three decades of transformative leadership in education, humanitarian response, social services, and conflict transformation. He is the Founder of CORAFID Centre for Innovation and Research Ltd/Gte (CORAFID) which currently is the State partner for the Presidential Community Engagement Peace Initiative (PCEPI), a peacebuilding project in the office of Nigeria’s President which is being implemented in his home State, Benue, Nigeria. He was the fourth President of Society for Peace Studies and Practice (SPSP) from 2022 to 2026, where he successfully transformed the Society from a national body operating in Nigeria into an international association with branches in Sierra Leone and Cameroon. Under his leadership, SPSP secured Special Consultative Status with the UN ECOSOC and full membership of the International Peace Bureau (IPB). SPSP also secured a mandate to provide strategic capacity building for all cadres of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and streamlined partnerships with the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) and Nigeria’s National Institute for Security Studies (NISS).
Beyond SPSP, he chairs the Coordinating Committee of the Forum on Farmer and Herder Relations in Nigeria (FFARN), a think tank network of peacebuilding organizations and research institutions managing resource conflicts in Nigeria and the Sahel. He has served as Zonal Coordinator in charge of North Central Nigeria at the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), and he currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Network (https://wanepnigeria.org/natheniel-awuapila/), and has been a Practitioner Adviser to University of Warwick’s (UK) “Data and Displacement” project implemented in Nigeria and South Sudan (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/projects/dataanddisplacement/data-displacement/researchteam/practitioner-advisory-group/). In 2025, he was elected to the Council of the IPB (https://ipb.org/nathaniel-msen-awuapila-council-member/), where he continues to contribute to global peace policy and advocacy.
Nathaniel has been a National Facilitator for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) on the Justice and Security Dialogue (JSD) Programme (2016-2023), and was a co-lead on the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS) national mission assessing climate change and security risks in Nigeria (2021-2022). He is the Consulting Editor of Women, Peace, and Security Journal, published by Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). He is married with children and lives in Nigeria.
Selected publications
| SELECTED PUBLISHED ACADEMIC WORKS | ||
| 2024 | Noah Yusuf, Nathaniel Msen Awuapila, and Ruth Abiola Adimula. 2024. Readings in Policing, Peace and Security: a festschrift in honour of Kayode Adeolu Egbetokun. | Extension Publishers & Amazon |
| 2022 | Awuapila, N.M. & Eyoh, C. 2022. A Situation Analysis of Sexual Based Violence Against Girls during the COVID-19 Lockdown in Gbajimba and Naka Internally Displaced Persons Camps in Benue State, Nigeria. https://wanepnigeria.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/WPS-Journal-maiden-edition-complete-version.pdf | WILPF and WANEP |
| 2021 | Awuapila, N.M. & Angalapu, D. 2021. Climate Change, ECOWAS Protocol on Transhumance and the Local Management of Farmer-Herder Conflict in Nigeria. https://www.academia.edu/145278144/Climate_Change_ECOWAS_Protocol_on_Transhumance_and_the_Management_of_the_Farmers_Herders_Conflict_in_Nigeria | Aboki Publishers, Makurdi |
| 2021 | Akanji, Eselebor, Awuapila and Abdulwasii. 2021. Border Security and Farmer-Herder Conflict in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin Akanji, Eselebor, Awuapila and Abdulwasii. 2021. Border Security and Farmer-Herder Conflict in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin – Search | Aboki Publishers, Makurdi |
| 2018 | Awuapila,M.N. 2018. The Vicious Cycle of Violence in Nigeria: Fostering Social Change Through Evaluation Practice. eds ND Danjibo & Adeola Adams. | Society for Peace Studies and Practice, Abuja |
| 2018 | Awuapila,M.N. 2018. The Culture of Violence in Nigeria: a problem of intractability or weak methods? in, “Connecting Contemporary African-Asian Peacemaking and Nonviolence: from Satagraha to Ujamaa”. eds Prof. Matt Meyer & Prof. Vidya Jain. https://www.amazon.com/Connecting-Contemporary-African-Asian-Peacemaking-Nonviolence/dp/1527516288 | Cambridge Scholars Publishing. England |
| Awuapila, M.N., Is Benue State Government Committed to Creating a Peaceful and Protective Environment for All to Thrive? (Policy Brief). Is benue state government committed to creating a protective and peaceful environment for all citizens to thrive | PDF | CORAFID | |
| 2015 | Awuapila N.M. (2015). Forced Migration Endangers Children, Poses Security Risk to Benue State. corafid/sewn/2015/02/28/1239/. http://www.slideshare.net/TheLeadingSkills/corafidsewn201502281239 | CORAFID |
| 2011 | Restorative Justice, ADR and Mediation in criminal justice and prison reforms as viable opportunities to break the cycle of incarceration (Published in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Human Rights and Prison Reform, 2011. www.internationalcure.org). | International CURE |
| 2009 | Awuapila, N.M., Establishing Community Structures for Peace in North Central Nigeria (2009), in I.O. Albert & I.O. Oloyede (Eds), Dynamics of Peace Processes | John Archers |
