THE Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb. Yusuf Tuggar, has warned against describing the unconstitutional change of government in West Africa as solely a regional problem.
Tuggar also insisted that the coup could engulf the entire African continent and add to the challenges of terrorism and other cross-border criminalities if not addressed.
The minister gave the warning at the 10th Annual High-level Seminar on the Promotion of Peace and Security in Africa: Assisting African Members of the UN Security Council in Preparing to Address Peace and Security Issues on the Continent in Oran, Algeria.
Tuggar, in a statement signed by his media aide, Alkasim Abdulkadir, on Monday, argued that “Some might say West Africa must have a problem and that is why the crisis is happening there.
He said: “In examining the root causes of UCG and proffering solutions. It is important to consider just not endogenous factors of governance, election processes but also important to consider the exogenous factors, some might look at West Africa and say West Africa must have a problem and that is why it is happening there.”
He argued that: “West Africa was not responsible for the implosion of Libya that brought out the proliferation of arms, West Africa was not responsible for failure of EU’s Sahel Strategy. It may not necessary be responsible for climate change in the Sahel and I can go on and on and on.
The easier option is to ignore all these things or to wish them away and simply say there is something West Africa is doing wrong and try and accommodate the new military regimes, but that would be fatal for the whole of Africa because we want to get to the issue of fighting terrorism in the entire Africa, in North Africa and other parts.”
He further stated that “It is easy to think the solution is to accommodate these new military regimes and work with them because they are dear to you and that way you can continue to fight against terrorism but this would not work.”
He advised: “I think the solution would be to bring life into Africa Union body of programmes because terrorist groups and indeed other criminal gangs edging ways in border areas and West Africa has complex border areas, issues of territory are difficult to man and manage and the African Union body of programmes bringing about development, bringing about infrastructure would be more coercive and more coordinated and bring development of infrastructure when we don’t give in to this military takeover on pressures from the social media.”
