Nigeria may withdraw troops from Darfur in six months
From Oghogho Obayuwana,
Abuja
APPARENTLY responding to criticisms over its renewed peace-keeping drive in parts of Africa, the Federal Government said yesterday that it may not allow its troops currently deployed to war-torn Darfur in Western Sudan, to stay on the battle line for more than six months.
The Guardian learnt that the country's decision not to stay "too long" on any peace keeping turf is informed by the need to send the proper signal to her partners in Africa and the world that the Federal Government intends to adhere to the letter, the finer elements contained in the newly-defined foreign policy thrust.
Also at the yearly ministerial briefing in Abuja, Foreign Affairs Minister Ambassador Olu Adeniji said the continuous presence of Nigerian troops in the disputed Bakassi peninsula despite the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) must not be misconstrued for intransigence by the Federal Government.
The government, he maintained, was only bent on sensibly exhausting all the implications of the ruling through the on-going Nigeria- Cameroun Mixed Commission before an acceptable way forward was eventually forged.
Fielding The Guardians questions, the minister said: "Our operations in Darfur is not a unilateral concern and so we cannot be so rigid on the matter of a time frame. Yes we can call our troops home but that will entail us calling on the AU (African Union), to seek its endorsement, so they can work out a mechanism to fill the void...we are looking at six months and hopefully the conflict would have been settled. We should also realise that Darfur is not the only problem in Sudan. There has been this cleavage between the north and south of the country and that protracted armed conflict is currently being resolved in Kenya..."
The minister's position is coming on the heels of strong exceptions expressed by diplomatic watchers over the seeming contradictions in Nigeria's peace keeping drive in relation to the newly envisioned foreign thrust, which defines engagement with other nations on the principle of concentricism.
The government is also yet to make a definite statement on how much the Darfur mission is costing the Nigerian taxpayers. The government of Nigeria the minister stated yesterday needs logistic and financial support to prosecute its mission in western Sudan from the outside world.
While noting that efforts at an amicable resolution on both sides are not stalled, Adeniji said a decision regarding the withdrawal or otherwise of troops from Bakassi peninsula would take some time, due to on-going negotiations which entail a re-demarcation of almost all of the border stretch between Nigeria and Cameroun.
He appealed to the international community not to be apprehensive of current efforts to rework Nigeria's foreign policy trajectory."The world has nothing to fear from Nigeria looking inwards," he added.
The minister's 12-page submission dwelt extensively on the debt problem, regional integration, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), repatriation of ill-gotten wealth, the technical aids corps, human trafficking as well as Nigeria and her role at the United Nations.
Describing Nigeria's debt profile and efforts to have it repaid or written off as "abracadabra", Adeniji said official development assistance to Nigeria had been dwindling over the past few years on account of complications traceable to the debt problem.
The current administration, according to him, he said "has been in the vanguard of action and advocacy (for debt remittance) especially within the G8 group of Nigeria's principal creditors. Much of the debt has been paid many times over, but it is abracadabra because the more you pay, the more you owe, as only the interest is being serviced over the years and not the principal... and this must be addressed." Maintaining that the foreign affairs ministry has embarked upon a renewed programme of strengthening bilateral economic co-operation with other countries, the minister said this was being carried out "through the resuscitation of joint economic co-operation agreements and carrying out vigorous implementation of the agreements.
"In the last two years, up to 20 of such meetings have been held with very beneficial results. The ministry has also co-operated with other ministries in the area of multilateral trade negotiations of the World Trade Organisation, aimed at opening markets of developed countries to products of export interest to Nigeria..."
According to the minister, two thirds of the time spent by the UN Security Council on meetings is spent on Africa's problems and such efforts have resumed through the Nigerian Permanent Mission in New York for negotiations on the need to reform the UN, particularly the Security Council."
He said: "We are working to ensure that Africa is accorded its dues in any new attribution of seats in the permanent and non-permanent membership categories. In that context, it should be recalled that in his address to the current 59th session of the UN General Assembly, Mr. President re-affirmed Nigeria's interest in one of the new permanent seats that may be created.
"Appropriate steps are being taken for the attainment of the objective." Adeniji also assured the watching world yesterday that the new foreign policy thrust did not imply a mercantilist approach in foreign engagement. He said "the thinking of Nigeria was that its national interest should be well articulated and simultaneously pursued to ensure complementality of zonal interventions and to avoid the seeming neglect of appropriate benefits to the nation and its people...While not diminishing the place of Africa, greater care will be taken not to blur Nigeria's national interest nor subsume it in the milieu of continental general interest", he said.
On hand for the briefing were members of the diplomatic community, foreign affairs experts and top government functionaries including the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen. Martin Luther Agwai.
