Experts have proffered solutions on how to address West Africa’s troubled democracy amid the global challenges to building stability and peace.
The discourse, organised by a non-governmental organisation, African Refugees Foundation (AREF), was titled: Troubled Democracy: Interrogating violence, internal displacement and migration in West Africa.
The lecture, held at the foundation’s corporate headquarters in Surulere area of Lagos, had in attendance discussants including Prof. Kolawole Raheem, Adebayo Olowo-Ake and other dignitaries.
Projects Executive, Wole Adediran, said the discourse was designed to rekindle interest in peace and democracy in order to fully contribute and understand peace education and what the democratic ethos entails.
He said: “Several citizens shun their rights to participate in civic activities yet keep on complaining about our politicians, that turn politics into a profession. One needs to be involved and add impetus to the democratic template.
“The prevalance of abject poverty is indication of inequity and injustice. Democratic principles outline indicators to look for in a sane society, in developed and developing nations. How to develop our nation is the reason behind this discourse.”
The foundation’s president, Chief Mrs. Opral Benson in her remarks disclosed that the foundation encourages public discourse on peace education and deliberative democracy.
“The frequency of multiple crises that produce internally displaced persons (IDPs) will reduce, and chances of securing confidence among stakeholders will scale up. At the level of political leaders, community heads, religion leaders, stakeholders leadership, the essence of equitable governance must be provided.”
One of the speakers, Prof. Raheem in his lecture titled: ‘Mainstreaming Peace Education into School Curriculum and Non-formal Learning’ called for inclusion of peace education inclusion into the school curriculum and non-formal learning.
He said: “The world is in a turmoil! There are wars everywhere. We have wars which are precursors to intense armed conflicts. Those are the wars we have to purposively work against to prevent large-scale armed confrontations in our society.
“It is my believe that any society that wants to prevent war and maintain peace would have to systematically build a purposive Peace Education for the society. It must be in form of purposive formal and non-formal peace education for all.
“I even think peace education in some forms of well-constructed conversations/discussions should take place in government institutions like the ministries, government parastatals and other work places.”
Also, in his lecture titled: ‘West Africa’s Troubled Democracy as a trigger for violence, internal displacement and illegal migration.’, Olowo-Ake lamented the regime of coups and counter coups that dotted the African landscape in the aftermath of the first republic for most countries.
He emphasised that some of the coups were foreseen owing to the poor governance under the civilian leadership.
Olowo-Ake said: “Today, the gains of the 2000s appear to be fizzling out. While ECOWAS reversed military regimes and other unconstitutional changes of power in Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Togo and The Gambia, the sub-region suddenly witnessed a rash of coups”
He recalled that great progress were made in West Africa in the 1990s to democratise the sub-region, with strong fillip provided for such efforts by the 2001 Democracy and Good Governance Protocol of ECOWAS which greatly influenced the AU into adopting similar policies to frustrate unconstitutional changes of power across the continent.
“I will find it hard to submit that the recent spate of coups that we have experienced in West Africa amount to an epidemic, but describing the region as having a troubled democracy is definitely apt because out of its 15 member-States, 4 (Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger) are now under military rule.”
“One common denominator for these countries is the jihadi insurgency on the territories of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.”
