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Obasanjo Lauds ECOWAS' Peace Initiatives

This Day (Lagos)
NEWS
January 20, 2005
Posted to the web January 20, 2005

By George Oji
Accra
As Kufour urges Ivorien factions to reconcile
President Olusegun Oba-sanjo has commended the various peace initiatives by the
leadership of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to
eradicate crises in the sub-region.
Addressing the 28th summit of the Heads of States and Government of ECOWAS
yesterday in Accra, Ghana in his capacity as Chairman of the African Union
(AU), Obasanjo observed that ECOWAS peace moves, particularly in the past two
years brought about relative peace within the region. This, he said, has made
it possible the advancement of the region's economic development, poverty
reduction, co-operation and integration programmes.
However, out-going ECOWAS Chairman and Ghananian president Mr. John Kufuor
while acknowledging some of the peace strides by ECOWAS, regretted the
continuing conflicts in Ivory Coast and urged the government, various factions
and all Ivorien to try to overcome their mutual suspicion, to enable them
arrest the insecurity, which continues to seriously threaten, divide and
destroy the country.
Obasanjo, who was full of commendations for Kufour as Chairman of ECOWAS for
the past two years, noted that the Ghanaian president's tenure addressed most
of the intractable conflicts in Liberia, Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone, noting
that,
"If Cote d'Ivoire still continue to give us great conccern, it has not been due
to a lack of engagement on your part as ECOWAS Chairman.
"The return and restoration of relative peace to most parts of our region
following the successful management and resolution of some of the vconflicts
that disturb the area has started to give us the respite and opportunity for
our regional body to pay more attention to issues of economic development,
poverty reduction, co-operation and integration programmes, which constitutes
the primary vision of the founding leaders," he said.
He said ECOWAS has taken advantage of this new window of opportunity of
relative peace to initiate several programmes as part of the NEPAD
infrastruture projects, aimed at cementing the destiny of the people of the
sub-region for sustainable development in a hostile and global environment.
He listed some of these development programmes to include the West African
Power Pool initiative and the West African Gas Pipeline project, both designed
to provide affordable, qualitative and sustainable energy supply to drive the
engine of industrialisation, reduction of poverty, create jobs and make the
sub-region globally competitive.
Obasanjo expressed satisfaction that the air, land and sea transport
facilitation and linkages, telecommunication connectivity among ECOWAS states
are also becoming realities, while the promotion of intra-trade and movement of
people and goods and services are recording appreciable successes despite
isolated bottlenecks in their implementation stages.
Giving the stewardship of his two year tenure as ECOWAS Chairman, Kufour who
was re-elected as Ghana president in the December, 2004 general election
observed that, "Today, there is a measurable level of peace and security in the
sub-region and the inhuman tide of refugees and displaced persons as well as
the exploitation of child soldiers is being effectively contained. Efforts by
ECOWAS, supported by the international community to restore normal political
life and economic activities in these conflict zones are making headway."
He regretted however that the continuing intransigence of various faction
leaders in the conflict areas gives the sub-region a negative image.
"It subverts the over-arching purpose of ECOWAS, which is first and foremost
about trade, about development and integration, the realisation of a common
market and above all the well-being of our people," he added.
He also expressed concern that the region was not on the part of attaining the
July 1, 2005 deadline for the second monetary zone to reach the convergence
criteria for the implementation of its common currency.
"In spite of their determination and serious efforts by member countries, they
are unable to meet this deadline. It would seem a more practical date would be
set. Our consolation is that the West African Monetary Institute and the
technical personnel of our respective nations are still working hard to reach
the convergence criteria," Kufour remarked.
On the positive side, Kufour said ECOWAS has adopted the AU's New Partnership
for Africa's Development (NEPAD) as its development framework and is working
assiduously to attain the Millenium Development Goals.
As a result of this, the Ghananian president observed that people-oriented
policies aimed at good governance, eradication of poverty and hunger, pursuit
of universal primary education, gender mainstreaming and environmental
sustainability and health care delivery are a common feature in many member
countries.

   

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