President Goodluck Jonathan has spoken of the likelihood of an international conspiracy aimed at fuelling insurgency in Africa to curb the continent’s growth, raising the possibility of extremist Boko Haram and other networks drawing their increasingly sophisticated weapons from “external forces”.
Mr. Jonathan spoke on Saturday in Abuja in an address to delegates to the joint annual meeting of the ministers of finance, planning, and economic development of the Economic Community of Africa, and those of the African Union.
The conference, which has as its theme: “Industrialization for Inclusive and Transformative Development Agenda”, is attended by African leaders as well as heads of international and regional development institutions and agencies.
Mr. Jonathan said it was worrisome that children who can hardly fend for themselves economically are the ones wielding sophisticated weapons used by the insurgents like Boko Haram to attack and destabilize the country.
“Whenever the issue of insecurity is mentioned, what readily comes to mind is: Where is the money used to buy these expensive guns coming from?” he asked.
“When one looks at the characters carrying these sophisticated weapons in the turbulent areas, including the northern part of my country – like an AK-47 riffle that is approximately more than $1,000, compared to the total cost of the materials they put on, including the canvass, which is often not up to $50, the question to ask is: Where is the money used in buying these expensive guns by these very poor wretched boys that carry these weapons to kill, destabilize the society, and increase our problems, in terms of economic development, coming from? Are there some external forces that don’t want Africa to grow that are providing these weapons?”
To evolve a strategy to combat the scourge of terrorism and promote economic development, President Jonathan urged African governments to come together to deepen their regional integration efforts and work towards a continental free trade area.
He also implored the continent’s leaders to find answers to the question why Africa’s economic growth has not translated into job creation in their various domains.
On why the problem has persisted, President Jonathan wondered if it has to do with Africa’s reluctance to shift her economic base away from primary commodities, lack of energy, corruption in government and the private sector, dearth of key infrastructure, problem of unstable governments or insecurity.
He called on the delegates to team up and exchange ideas, share knowledge and learn from each other’s experiences, adding that they should work together to execute regional infrastructure projects towards the implementation of the continent’s plans for industrialization and trade integration.
The Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who also spoke at the conference, said the time is now for African countries to actualize the Common African Position, CAP, for the industrialization and development of the continent.
Ms. Sirleaf said the all-inclusive document, which was adopted at the 26th AU Head of Government meeting at Addis Ababa, has received a wide range of consultations by member-states.
The deputy secretary-general of the United Nations, Jan Eliasson, stated: “There can be no peace without development, no development without peace, and no peace or development without human rights and the rule of law.”
He said the nexus between peace and development was essential, while effective institutions and rule of law were paramount ingredients for both peace and development in every society.
The ambitious commitment to establish a continental free trade area by 2017, he noted, would give momentum to Africa’s industrial development efforts, pointing out, however, that this required caution in the mobilization of domestic resources towards it.
At the media briefing later, Mr. Eliasson acknowledged terrorism as a difficult problem to handle based on the experience in other parts of the world, including Latin America, where terrorism and organized crime work together.
He said efforts have to be made to control the flow of funds to the insurgent groups, drawing attention to the importance of the work of the High Level Panel, led by former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, to curb Illicit financial flows from Africa.
Mr. Eliasson said the problem of financing of terrorism activities required concerted collaboration, since it was neither a national nor regional problem alone, but also international.
“The loss of $50 billion each year from such financial outflows, which far exceeds the amount of official development assistance to Africa, is unacceptable,” he said.
“Halting illicit financial flows at the sources and at their destinations, will help fund substantial parts of the continent’s long-term Agenda for 2063.”
Though he commended the effort by the Nigerian government to tackle the terrorism in the country, he said the UN and the international Community reacted with shock and total disgust the recent killing of innocent school children in Yobe State by the armed bandits.
While thanking the Nigerian government for supporting the effort to reconstruct the UN HQs building in Abuja destroyed in 2011 by terrorists, Mr. Eliasson expressed the hope that the office would restored to its functional state before long.
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