How ECOWAS Can Manage Conflict, By Wade
From George Oji in Abuja
Senegalese Republic, Maitre Abdoulaye Wade, yesterday called for the establishment of practical mechanism that would offer quick responses to conflicts and emergencies within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Delivering the year 2004 annual inaugural lecture of Course 13 of the National War College of Nigeria in Abuja, Wade said such a move would enable the countries fashion out quick and practical mechanism to enable the sub-region react promptly to natural and man made disasters as well as terrorism.
"It is time for us to have our operational mechanism in ECOWAS which will coordinate efforts and deploy logistics every time one of our countries crash into disaster," he said.
Speaking on the subject matter, "Francophone/Anglophone West Africa's approach to sub-regional security and development in the next decade," the Senegalese leader noted that the issue of linguistic barriers no longer pose major problem to conflict resolution among the ECOWAS countries.
Wade paid glowing tribute to the mediatory role Nigeria is playing in Africa under President Olusegun Obasanjo, equating such role and influence to that which the United States plays in the American continent.
He identified three categories of conflicts pervading African continent to include political, socio-economic and ethnic in nature.
Wade said the political context in which these conflicts arise and their real motives often tends to worsen matters.
He also identified some crisis precipitating factors such as systematic and generalized violations of fundamental rights, absence of democracy, influence of foreign interests, undue politicization of social issues and proliferation of arms sales to conflict areas.
The visiting Senegalese President attributed the apparent low success rates recorded by peace keeping and conflict resolution efforts, especially the involvement of the United Nations peace keepers, to poor management, adding that time has come for a total review of strategies.
"Of course the UN must not lose interest in Africa, but adapt its modes of actions to African specifics", he said.
In his welcome address, Commandant of the National War College, Rear Admiral A. G. Adedeji, disclosed that since inception, the institution has graduated about 585 participants from the Africa and beyond.
"Out of that number, 70 came from sister African nations but only from outside Africa. With this number of non-Nigerian African officers that we train so far, we can justifiably claim the position of a continental training institution at the strategic level for national security in general and the military in particular", he said.
He said the College was currently involved in the task of training officers of the sub-region in peace support operations at strategic levels.
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