For the past few decades, Nigeria has witnessed uprisings in almost all parts of the country. The sedition era in Nigeria can be said to have begun in 2009 with the emergence of violent terrorist attacks in the Northern part of the country. These attacks which has been attributed to an Islamic sect popularly called “Boko Haram” (western education is forbidden) has a focus to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria and remove all Western influences. To achieve this, the sect has been involved in and has taken responsibility for series of bombing, massacres, abductions and destruction of lives and properties in different parts of Northern Nigeria. Notable among these attacks is the August 26, 2011 car bomb blast on the UN Headquarters in Abuja which killed at least 20 people and injured 80 others; and the abduction of about 250 Chibok school girls on the 15th of April, 2014.
Second to the Boko Haram is the pervasive armed banditry that has threatened the peace of some Northern states especially Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto and Niger States. In this case, members of the different several bandit groups terrorize settlements, farms, and travellers on the highways. These bandits kill, maim and kidnap people for ransoms. They also engage in cow rustling (Olaniyan, 2018), and in many cases, they kill, maim and rape women and girls before dispossessing them of their cows. Between January and July 2019, about 330 attacks and 1,460 deaths were recorded from banditry.
The third shade of uprising in Nigeria includes the different separatist agitations that has led to the loss of lives and economic value. Agitations around Biafra, Oduduwa, Arewa and Niger Delta republic; and agitations embedded in the call for National restructuring and regional resource control. Other sources of sedition include the various inter-ethnic clashes experienced in states like Kaduna, Plateau, Cross River and Enugu; and most recently, the Youth anti-government protest that was triggered by police and/or Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS) brutality.
All these uprisings have been said to have their roots in religious affiliations/fanatism; spread and availability of weapons of war; unemployment; corruption; weak institutional structures and poverty. Although the causes of the various uprisings in Nigeria seem numerous, Nigeria and the international community have invested huge resources to curb these uprisings and provide security for the citizenry. As these different shades of sedition and the measures designed to fight them affect the lives of every Nigerian, the concept of peace may have been lost in the concept of security. Although security can be conceptualized as the absence of threats to peace, it is in fact, not the absence of threats to peace. Security is the ability to judiciously and expertly rise to the challenges posed by these threats to peace. Security involves protection from long-standing/dreadful threats and deleterious disruptions. Security refers to all measures designed and allocated to protect and defend the people; their resources/businesses; and their nation against sabotage or destruction.

What then is peace?
Peace is freedom from civil disorder or hostilities; peace is a state of harmony and health in the body; peace is freedom from mental and/or spiritual disturbance; and peace is freedom from conflicts arising from passion or guilt. Considering the security situation of the country, turning to nature for peace and tranquility will not only benefit the populace, it will also benefit the natural environment. Peace and lessons from nature can represent an optimistic outlook for a developing nation like Nigeria.

Nature’s lesson:
Green plants which have become the symbol of nature presents lessons on how to live peaceably. Light and air, water and soil work together in a plant’s life and none of them can be lacking if the plant is to grow. Similarly, plants grow to become the basis of animal and human life in food, shelter and medicine. Hence, what we truly must learn from nature is an understanding of ‘relationship’. To effectively learn and enjoy peace from nature, we must understand that we are nature, we belong to nature and must become conscious of nature’s expectations.
Armed with the knowledge of whom we are in relation to nature, peace and quiet can be drawn from nature through sensory and non-sensory pathways. The sensory pathways include sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. The non-sensory pathways to nature’s peace include but not limited to soil/gut microbes and phytoncides.
Viewing nature has been reported to reduce anxiety, stress and heart rates. The colours (blues and greens) of nature and the lack of straight lines in nature (curves and hue diversity) are important in nature therapy. Similarly, nature sounds (from water, birds, insects, etc) are an important source of peace and restoration. For example, bird sounds have been found to increase recovery of skin conductance level, a measure of stress. Thirdly, since the human limbic system and smells are connected, the lack of anthropogenic smells in nature can have positive and interesting effects on our health and wellbieng. Though smell is one of the human weakest senses, nature offers peace and mental wellbeing benefits through its array of informative and pleasurable odours. Many natural smells like that of flowers, cut grass, and damp earth, are known to evoke feelings of calm and peace. Last but not the least sensory pathway to peace from nature is the tactile sense. The tactile sense affects social interactions/bond and stress levels in humans. Nature offers tactile stimulation mainly via animal petting. Animal petting/husbandry have been reported to reduce blood pressure (one of the measures of stress levels) and increase relaxation/comfort.
As stated earlier in this article, peace from nature benefits can also be obtained through non-sensory pathways albeit unknowingly. Phytoncides which are believed to reduce stress and increase calm and relaxation are organic compounds emitted by plants as defense against decay or attack from herbivores. Phytoncides are neither smelled nor tasted by humans but are ingested/inhaled directly. They have been reported to prolong sleep, decrease anxiety and reduce cardiovascular reaction to stress from restraints. Another often overlooked non-sensory source of calm from nature is the soil and gut microbes. The human intestine contains about a 100 trillion bacteria which means humans have 10–100 times more bacteria than cells. These bacteria come from the natural environment especially soil, water and airborne spores. These microbes are very important to central nervous system function, but a lot of us miss out on this nature benefit due to increased sedentary indoor lifestyles and increased sanitation conditions that characterized urban dwelling. This means that humans are exposed to fewer of these microorganisms than we used to, and thus lose out on the calm and peace benefits.
Conclusion
Although Nigeria’s security has been quite tensed and volatile, nature’s therapeutic benefits can be sought for the peace and mental wellbeing of the populace. Lessons on inter-dependent relationship from nature can also be employed to douse tensions and encourage social bond and nature justice. This is especially important in the face of poverty, social frustration and wanton loss of lives and properties that has bedeviled the nation in the midst of the sedition era.