- Agency Report
President Bola Tinubu has implored the African Union (AU) to reinvigorate diplomacy as the primary and most effective means of conflict resolution in Africa.
Tinubu made the call during a meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council at the level of Heads of State and Government.
The meeting was held on the sidelines of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
The Nigerian leader, represented by the Vice-President Kashim Shettima, acknowledged the role played by the AU’s Peace Support Operations (PSOs), a unit designed to maintain, monitor and build peace in Africa.
Tinubu said with the current UN administration and growing interest by traditional partners in conflicts outside Africa, it was becoming increasingly difficult for countries to shoulder the total cost of peace support operations on the continent.
He said: “Our continent must continue to maintain a diplomatic approach in its conflict prevention and resolution endeavours.
” We urge this council to ensure that the concept of future peace operations, particularly the UN mandated ones, make provision for diplomatic and political strategies that would ultimately address the root causes of conflict.
“We also urge the council to ensure that the existing strategies for future AU PSO’s include elements that would ensure that national and local institutions can effectively anticipate and manage shocks and relax multiplies.”
The president said this was the only way the continent’s peace support operations can leave behind resilient and self sustaining peace infrastructure wherever they find themselves.
“We further wish to underscore the current practice of proliferation of numerous peace initiatives on our continent with counter AU’s prevention and resolution processes,” he added.
Tinubu warned against external interference in crisis situation in Africa, including the presence of foreign military forces, mercenaries and defence contractors in some AU states.
He said that meddling in crises on the continent remained contrary to the African Conflict Prevention and Resolution Initiatives.
The president called on the council to consider adopting a communique to address the loopholes in conflict resolution.
The Nigerian leader urged the council to consider the call for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of foreign forces from member countries.
He also told the council to ” expeditiously address obstacles to the operationalisation of the African standby force.
Tinubu further called for the adoption of strategy for the deployment of the African standby force in conflict situations on the continent.
He noted that the council would be more successful if it regularly coordinates, consults and strategically engages similar structures or mechanism of regional economic communities.
“It’s our view that conflict prevention and resolution on the continent is a solidarity, and working in silence should be avoided completely.
” The AU has adequate mechanism for prevention of the ever changing conflict and crisis dynamics on our continent.
” What we lack, however, is trust in our processes and institutions as well as consistency in the application of our normative instruments,” he said.
According to him, the current practice where African leaders rely on mechanisms outside the continent for solutions to their security challenges without exhausting internal processes should be addressed.
Tinubu also urged the council to encourage AU member states to recommit to subjecting themselves to its peace and conflict resolution processes.
He said Nigeria welcomed the prevailing practice of appointing Special Envoys to countries in conflict on the continent.
Tinubu, however, said that there is need to equip members of these AU Ad–Hoc peace initiatives, particularly the Special envoys and high-Level representatives, with the required skills.
The skills, he said, would enable them to become effective instrument for the prevention or de-escalation of conflicts in Africa.
”This requires the adoption of criteria that ensures that only well–respected pan– Africanist leaders that are willing to use their influence and connections to compel parties to conflict to sheath their swords, ” he said.
He underscored the importance of adequate funding and provision of strategic logistics as success enablers of Peace Support Operations.
” This is why we support the call for the operationalisation of UN Security Council Resolution 2719 on Somalia.
” This is important given the primary responsibility of the UN Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security in accordance with relevant provisions of the United Nations Charter,” he said.
Earlier, Mr Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the African Union, decried the surge in arms conflict and dwindling funding for peace interventions in Africa.
Onanga-Anyanga, who is also the Head of the UN Office to the African Union, urged member countries to establish their own national peace building and conflict prevention mechanism.
“Prevention, indeed, must start at home and must be consistent with the United Nations Charter regional organisations such as the African Union.
” Of course, regional economic commissions and regional mechanisms have a key role to play in this regard,” he said. NAN