By Kolawole Ojebisi
The Nigerian government has provided reasons for its rejection of the proposal seeking to create a new department in the African Union (AU) out of the existing department of political affairs, peace, and security.
Recall that a Nigerian diplomat, Bankole Adeoye, heads the department of political affairs, peace and security.
Adeoye won reelection for another term at the 38th ordinary session of the assembly of the heads of state and government, which ended on Sunday.
But speaking on Nigeria’s position on splitting AU’s political affairs, peace, and security department Tinubu noted that the country is not averse to the idea of reforming the union.
Tinubu, however, maintained that creating another department out of an existing one would increase spending.
“We do not support the proposal to reconfigure the department of political affairs peace and security (PAPS) as the reconfiguration of the PAPS Department in the way currently suggested will only lead us to incur more expenditure needlessly,” the president said.
Tinubu’s position was delivered by Yusuf Tuggar, minister of foreign affairs, according to a statement issued by Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to the president on information and strategy.
“We already have an SOD under the directorate of PAPS. We cannot have a peace support operations directorate independent of the directorate of political affairs, peace, and security,” he added.
“We believe any attempt to create another department from the existing one will destabilise the AU political affairs and peace and security process.
“It is also important that issues that were never brought to the attention of member states are not part of the reform.”
Tinubu called for inclusiveness and transparency as integral parts of the system reform, noting that the AU should instead focus on implementing adopted policies and programmes.
“It is in this connection that Nigeria wishes to reiterate that instead of seeking to reach consensus on all fronts of our reform in one sweep, we should concentrate on areas where we have already reached consensus,” the president said.
“There is no harm in carrying out reform in phases. It would be an error to continue seeking consultation on all fronts in perpetuity.”
Tinubu said it is important to make the continental body more vibrant, viable, and relevant to the needs of member states in the face of rapidly changing global political and economic realities.
He said Nigeria would continue to support the reform process as long as it remained transparent and inclusive and did not “needlessly” destabilise the status quo.
