By: Kazeem Biriowo
Nigeria has called for predictable and sustainable financing, stronger coordination and improved early-response mechanisms to strengthen the African Union’s peace and security architecture and address growing conflicts across the continent.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, made the call on Thursday in Abuja while declaring open the Consultative Forum on Strengthening the Functional Performance of the African Union Peace and Security Architecture.
She said the forum was a critical step towards implementing the African Union Assembly’s Decision 967 of February 2026, which directed the AU Commission Chairperson to submit concrete recommendations on strengthening the functional performance of the continent’s peace and security architecture by January 2027.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu said Nigeria was particularly concerned by the spread of terrorism from the Sahel towards the coastal states of West Africa, as well as across the Lake Chad Basin, Horn of Africa, Great Lakes and northern Mozambique.
According to her, terrorist groups are increasingly deploying drones, illicit financial flows and links with organised crime and illegal artisanal mining to expand their operations.
She also warned that intense geo-strategic competition and the weakening of multilateralism were placing additional pressure on Africa’s peace and security efforts.
The minister said while the AU’s peace and security architecture remained one of the most ambitious regional systems globally and had delivered significant results, gaps persisted between its aspirations and realities on the ground.
“Our early warning is sound, but early action is slow. Our operations are boldly conceived, but their financing is uncertain. Our norms are clear, but their application has been inconsistent,” she said.
She added that the AU’s presence remained weak in some conflict hotspots, while counter-terrorism efforts were often fragmented, reactive and underfunded.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu urged African countries to build a more resilient, better-resourced and self-reliant peace and security architecture anchored on African leadership.
She said the two-day forum would focus on mediation, dialogue and preventive diplomacy; early warning and response; counter-terrorism; and peace support operations.
On early warning and mediation, the minister said prevention remained cheaper, faster and more humane than responding after violence had erupted.
She called for the Continental Early Warning System to provide the Peace and Security Council with short, timely and decision-oriented briefs containing concrete response options.
Nigeria, she said, also supported the establishment of a mediation coordination mechanism to clarify the respective roles of the AU, Regional Economic Communities and Regional Mechanisms and the United Nations.
This, she said, would prevent conflicting mediation efforts and ensure that parties to disputes could not exploit duplicated mediation tracks.
She further proposed a vetted roster of African mediators and technical experts in areas including constitutionalism, power-sharing, security sector reform and ceasefire arrangements, who could be deployed within days.
The minister also called for stronger support for national infrastructures for peace and the African Peer Review Mechanism to address governance deficits that often underpin conflicts.
She urged adequate resourcing of the Panel of the Wise and FemWise-Africa to enable them to effectively discharge their mandates.
On counter-terrorism and preventing violent extremism, Odumegwu-Ojukwu said African countries must prioritise addressing local grievances, youth unemployment and community resilience.
She warned that weak oversight and loosely defined counter-terrorism laws could erode public confidence and fuel terrorist recruitment, stressing the importance of rehabilitation and reintegration programmes.
The minister expressed concern over overlapping counter-terrorism frameworks, including the Nouakchott and Djibouti processes, Regional Mechanisms and bilateral partnerships, saying they weakened coordination.
She called for the African Union Counter-Terrorism Centre to be fully utilised as the continental focal point, with improved intelligence sharing among member states and relevant agencies, including the Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu also urged African countries to reduce their dependence on external partners, including private military and security companies, whose changing priorities, she said, could undermine African sovereignty.
On peace support operations, the minister said the decline in United Nations peacekeeping and partner funding had significantly reduced support for AU-led missions.
“Over-reliance on external funding delays the payment of troop entitlements, weakens morale and makes mission planning uncertain,” she said.
She called on the Head of the United Nations Office to the African Union to continue working with the AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Ambassador Bankole Adeoye, for the urgent implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2719, adopted in December 2023.
While supporting efforts to replenish the AU Peace Fund, she cautioned that the fund should not become a basis for the UN to expect Africa to finance every conflict on the continent.
She also called for the urgent operationalisation of the African Standby Force and stronger support for regional standby arrangements with strategic enablers.
The minister said strengthening the continent’s peace and security architecture required closing the gap between early warning and early action, consistently applying continental norms, clarifying the division of labour among the AU, Regional Economic Communities, Regional Mechanisms and the UN, and securing predictable and sustainable financing.
She further stressed the need to combine military responses with governance-led conflict prevention.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu expressed hope that the forum would produce practical and implementable recommendations that could be readily embraced by AU member states.
She thanked the African Union Commission, delegates and partners for their participation and expertise, and welcomed them to Abuja.
