By Isaac Aregbesola
The African Union )AU) has commended the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari and ECOWAS leaders in restoring peace, security and the people’s democratic will in The Gambia.
Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama stated this in a chat with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the 28th summit of the heads of state and government in Addis Ababa.
Onyeama said leaders of AU at the plenaries said they were impressed by collaborated efforts of the ECOWAS leaders championed Nigeria.
“What we just saw in the Gambia is a welcome development on the continent in fact a lot of countries took the floor to commend the ECOWAS in installing democratically elected government in the country.
“The development was a model and inspiration for the whole continent, it has been embraced and supported by all the countries on the continent.
“It also speaks well to our leaders, our president, because he was a mediator for the whole initiative, and also ECOWAS chairperson, the President of Liberia, Mrs Sirleaf Johnson.”
He said former President of Ghana, Mr. John Mahama, who is the co-mediator in the Gambia political crisis praised the leaders and wants Africa to establish democracy, the rule of law and respect for constitutions.
He explained that Nigeria had always been in the forefront of ensuring peace and security on the continent as a whole.
The minister said that Nigeria was working not only towards intervening in conflicts but ensuring peace on the continent.
“We are also going to look in to ensuring the implementation of 2063 Agenda of the AU and will be playing role in identifying countries that buy in to the implementation of the agenda.
“One of the most important goals within that is silencing the guns by 2020 that is the ending of conflict on the continent by 2020,” he said.
According to him, Nigeria’s strategy to have the commissioner for peace and security is to be at the fore front of wanting to push for the peace agenda on the African continent.
He said what Nigeria did in the Gambia and the setting up of standby force shows that Nigeria really appreciate that peace is paramount to the growth of the continent.
“Without peace on this continent development will always be a challenge so that is one of the things that we are targeting.
“Nigeria is very involved peace and security architecture group and we are really looking to see movement on peaceful resolution on a number of countries on the continent that is really important,” he said.(NAN)
