Buhari urges AU to focus on conflict-building, peace building, others

FOR promoting peace, security and stability in Africa, the Federal Government has commended the Peace and Security Council of the African Union, urging member countries to continue using their comparative advantages in early action of conflict prevention, peace making, post-conflict peace building, reconstruction and development, strengthening of democratic practices and governance, as well as in combating terrorism and violent extremism.

President Muhammadu Buhari, represented by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, made the commendation yesterday at the opening of a retreat for members of the AU Peace and Security Council and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) focusing on the Promotion of Peace, Security and Stability in Africa holding at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Abuja.

According to Buhari, the Peace and Security Council “has been a novel African initiatives in many respects, one that has proven an effective tool in conflict management’’.

Speaking to the audience of ambassadors and diplomats from several African countries, the President added that the “achievements of the Council in its 11 years of existence have set it out as an outstanding best practice, worthy of emulation by other regions in the world.”

He said the Peace and Security Council “has been AU’s lead response agency in tackling numerous conflicts and other security challenges in all respects, ranging from political crisis, armed conflicts to humanitarian crisis as exemplified in the Council’s handling of the recent Ebola Virus Disease in some of our countries.”

Buhari also underscored the significance of the needed synergy between Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and the Peace Security Council (PSC), an organ of the African Union (AU), emphasizing that such cooperation is crucial for the African Union as a continental body. While stressing the importance of the synergy, he said, “the importance of the two having stronger coordination and synergy of functions can never be over-emphasized. Indeed, if the AU is to deliver on the goals set out in the Constitutive Act, closer cooperation and synergy with the RECs is one requirement that is absolutely imperative.”

“It is when all of these are comprehensively addressed that all the weak linkages and gaps that often pose the risk of parallel initiatives and contractions will be eliminated thereby achieving our delineated objectives under the APSA (African Peace and Security Architecture),” he submitted.
The President noted that “today, almost on a monthly basis there is a fresh conflict situation, or a relapse of post-conflict situations.