She said one of the Centre’s core mandates is to engender peaceful coexistence among people in the various communities in the state through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) just like the UN, a global peace body, does on an international level. She said: “The essence of partnering with the United Nations is that before a matter will escalate to the stage of self-help, the Citizen’s Mediation Centre offers mediation as an Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanism. “Instead of going to court they’ll come here, and it’s for civil not criminal cases, they’ll come to our office and the matter will be handled by trained mediators, neutral persons. Both parties will agree to a Memorandum of Understanding and that is it, everyone is happy, unlike going to court where the case may go on for a long time and you know as Africans you don’t go to court and come back to become friends.” She continued: “But at the CMC we encourage people to shake hands, husbands and wives who have come to dissolve their marriage, they’ll end up going back home happy and all that. “That’s basically why we’re partnering with the United Nations World Peace Day, to engender peace in our communities just like the UN is doing globally.’’ The announcement of the UN partnership was made during last month’s World Peace Day celebration by Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode. Mrs. Odusanya said the partnership was here to stay. The CMC Director said: “Just like what we did on September 21, every World Peace Day we hope to come up with programmes that tell people about our centre and encourage them to embrace alternative dispute resolution. “ADR has helped to greatly reduce the number of cases at the courts. Even the courts nowadays they now send cases to us, they look at the cases and ask the parties, have you tried mediation? If you have not, then go to CMC. It is only when mediation fails that they may be encouraged to go to court.”]]>