President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in Nouakchott, Islamic Republic of Mauritania, called on African leaders to place a premium on promoting democratic principles that will deliver good governance as a panacea for peace.
The Nigerian leader stated this at the African Conference for Peace, 2023, where he bagged the “Award for Strengthening Peace in Africa”.
The president also emphasised the need for youth development, with more seriousness and actionable ideas that will promote skills acquisitions, while discouraging idleness.
Buhari noted that idleness among youths and non-inclusion in discussing issues that shape their lives and the future portends liability for the continent, especially in religious fundamentalism and extremism.
The president, who was honoured by the Abu Dhabi Peace Forum with ‘Award for Strengthening Peace in Africa’, said there was a need to inculcate values and principles of tolerance and peace in educational institutions, and particularly, among the youths.
“African leaders and decision makers should ensure that democratic principles and good governance form the basis for management of affairs in every country in Africa, noting that peace, security and good governance are inseparable.
“There is also a need also for African stakeholders, that is, the government, private sector and the civil society organisations, to make concerted efforts to support existing mechanisms and initiatives to build strong and virile institutions that effectively support good governance which, among others, lead to the development and progress of our countries and continent.
“African leaders must reaffirm their commitment by demonstrating political will required for ownership of African Peace and Security Architecture and in the implementation of African Governance Architecture.
“We must also adjust the effectiveness of the early warning system and conflict prevention and adopt policies aimed at resolving the crisis of de-radicalisation through continuous dialogues and negotiations,’’ he said.
Buhari noted that efforts must be concretised towards the curtailment and possible prevention of the circulation of small arms and light weapons, as well as the festering of the foreign fighters into the African continent.
He urged the next summit of the African Union to take a holistic review of the challenges that continue to fester in Libya with the hope of finding pragmatic African approach to resolving the over a decade-old instability in Libya that had made that country a safe-haven for all kinds of weapons and foreign fighters whose profound impacts stare all in the sub-regions and Africa.
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Buhari, while noting that global terrorism, banditry and other trans-national crimes continue to pose enormous challenges not only to Africa but to global peace and security, added that “These phenomena have become perennial threats to sustained economic development and growth.
“Nigeria and other regional bodies in Africa and the rest of the world are working assiduously to deal with these existential threats to the very existence of humanity. For us in Nigeria, we continue to engage bilaterally and multilaterally to comprehensively win the war against the Boko Haram insurgency and other related terror groups through kinetic and non-kinetic approaches.
“When I assumed power in 2015, Boko Haram held about two thirds of Borno State, half of Yobe State, and a couple of local government areas in Adamawa State, all in the northeast of Nigeria. We have been able to retrieve these swathes of territories by investing over a $1 billion dollars to acquire hard and soft ware weaponry from the US and other friendly countries to carry out sustained operations against insurgency since 2015.
“Our Armed Forces and those of our partners in the Multinational Joint Task Force (consisting of Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Benin Republic and Nigeria) continue to demonstrate great bravery while paying the ultimate price in securing our collective freedom. Despite the difficult times we face, we continue to spend very scarce and lean resources to ensure that we have a well-resourced military force to take on this task. Ideally, these are resources that could be spent on education, healthcare, infrastructure and other social services, but without peace, we have learnt the hard way that our children cannot go to school or seek good healthcare,” Buhari said.
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