Obasanjo: Dialogue, not violence, will resolve conflicts in Africa

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says only dialogue without any form of violence, will help resolve conflicts in Africa.

Obasanjo spoke in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital, on Monday at a youth leadership symposium organised as part of activities to mark his 87th birthday which comes up on March 5.

The symposium was titled “Opportunities for peace: Roles of the youths in conflict prevention in Africa”.

The former president said efforts to inculcate a culture of peace and security in the youth must be intensified.

He noted that such efforts would spur young people to be at the forefront of promoting peace rather than being used to perpetrate violence.

“We must begin to bring up our youths in the culture of peace and security. The chances are where we have culture of love, we will have peace,” Obasanjo said.

“The first thing to do is to inculcate in the youths the ingredients of peace which is love and fellowship.

“Look at the attributes that God gave us to have life of stability, life of peace, they are as I mentioned, kindness, mercy and forgiveness.

“All of these attributes are professed by God and he shared same with us to make life pleasant for us. But when we build negative attitudes, pull him down, then there will be problems.

“The youth must be at the vanguard of pursuing peace, they must be able to persuade those who believe that gun and violence is the way out of conflicts to have a rethink, the way out is conversation and dialogue.

“We have had our issues here during the civil war; we killed ourselves mercilessly, destroyed our best facilities but we still came back to the roundtable to get the challenges resolved.”

The programme was organised by the Centre for Human Security and Dialogue in collaboration with the Institute for African Culture and International Understanding, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library.

Peter Okebukola, former executive secretary of the Nationa Universities Commission (NUC}, emphasised Obasanjo’s commitment to African youths’ pivotal role in achieving peace across the continent.