Mahama advises African leaders to address peace, security challenges
Former President John Dramani Mahama says Africa must look beyond the deployment of troops, hardware and drone technology to address the challenges to peace and security on the continent.
According to him, it was necessary for Africa and its institutions to “rather find the source of the regional insecurity fire and extinguish the flames before they engulf the continent”.
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Presenting the State of Peace and Security in Africa 2021 report at the 10th Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, Mr Mahama said Africa must consider the time-tested “spirit of entrepreneurship, so that we can fight the trade war rather than simply expend our energies trying to put out extremist fires — and behaving like a fire brigade, only reacting when it is too late”.
The former President, who is the Chairperson of the Tana Forum Board, noted that Africa seemed unable to proactively prevent crisis, despite the availability of key institutions and mechanisms to pre-empt and resolve conflicts.
He argued that the degree of cross-border interaction and exchange and the deepening reach of globalisation meant the continent needed to frame Africa’s conflict situations as regional crises with national dimensions.
Africa 2021
According to the report, Africa, in 2021, witnessed a reversal of some of the democratic gains that were achieved in the 1990s and 2000, with the resurgence of unconstitutional changes of government, contestation for state power, the regionalisation of violent conflict and the return to authoritarian rule and undermining of the rule of law, both of which were drivers of violent conflict.
“Moreover, in 2021, limited economic growth, an immense youth bulge and high levels of rural-urban conflict and forced migration created conditions for extremism to spread into vulnerable countries,” it noted.
Outlining some of the recommendations of the 2021 State of Peace and Security Report, President Mahama said African Union member states “need to prevent the resurgence of unconstitutional changes of government by reacting much more swiftly to ensuing crisis” and “develop continental-based pharmaceutical industries to manufacture and distribute their own COVID-19 vaccines to African citizens”.
The report also recommended that the AU’s Commission for Political Affairs, Peace and Security “develop dedicated programmes of work with the AU Special Envoy for Youth and the African Youth Ambassadors to mobilise the continent’s youth to proactively work to prevent and resolve conflict, as well as promote post-conflict reconstruction, peace-building and transitional justice”.
