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Nigeria�s
peace keeping effort is to Africanise internal conflicts�Adeniji
By
Onyekachi Eze
Senior
Reporter,
Abuja
The
minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji said challenges
facing most African nations since their attainment of independence in the
1960s have shifted from the quest for self-determination and economic
emancipation to the Africanisation of the internal conflicts presently
ravaging many nations within the continent.
This, he
added, was responsible for economic retardation and growth in most of
these countries.
Adeniji at
a ministerial press briefing on the activities of his ministry since last
year said it was because of the need to Africanise these internal
conflicts that Nigeria took the initiative of resolving these
conflicts.
Thus, in
the past five years of the Obasanjo administration, it has succeeded in
affirming Nigeria as a catalyst in conflict resolution in Africa. Since
the administration itself is the product of an internal democratic
process, which is being constantly strengthened, its initiative in
resolving African conflicts have increasingly gained credibility, the
minister disclosed.
He said the
international community, including the United Nation (UN�s) Security
Council, has conceded to Nigeria the leadership role in conflict
resolution in Africa� and the right of the African Union to determine the
nature of collaboration for the outside world.
The
minister further added that the conception of the African Union (AU),
which is the successor of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was to
adequately position Africa to confront the major challenges of conflicts
in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War.
Among the
organs of the AU stands out the peace and security council of which
Nigeria is a member and which has the primary responsibility of
determining measures, including deployment of African troops, into any
country in conflict, he added.
According
to the minister, the New Partnership for Africa�s Development (NEPAD)
pioneered by Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa, Abdoullaye Wade of Senegal, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria and
Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was aimed at launching African countries onto the
path of sustainable growth and development, through common
projects.
�It is a
home-grown response to the challenges of poverty, disease, ignorance,
human deprivation and the marginalisation of the continent in a rapidly
globalising world. It proceeds from an affirmation of the principle that
good governance is a fundamental prerequisite for sustainable
socio-economic development�, he added.
The
minister explained that NEPAD has been accepted universally as an
authentic African programme, stating that it has become the measure by
which a definition of co-operation with Africa by the international
community would be achieved.
On the contentious Bakassi
issue, Adeniji disclosed that the matter was being discussed at a higher
governmental level between Nigeria and Cameroon, assuring that the matter
would soon be laid to rest.
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