Ambassador Perpetual Dufu, the Coordinating Director/Multilateral and International organisations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration (MFARI), has indicated that resorting to coup d’états as an option to solve development and governance challenges was wrong.
She said the African continent had a growing youth population, which did not resonate with the available opportunities for them and that led to agitations and sometimes resulted in coup d’états.
She, however, said “One thing I can say is that we don’t always have to look for the solution in coup d’état.”
Ambassador Dufu said this in Wa at a stakeholders’ workshop on the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) protocol, programmes, and activities organized by the MFARI in collaboration with the Media Response.
The workshop was to offer the participants the opportunity to know and understand the pivotal role that ECOWAS played in the development and integration of the sub-region and the African continent in general.
Ambassador Dufu added that issues of climate change displaced people and the desire for people to change their livelihood and lifestyles had also caused them to move from rural areas into urban areas, which had its accompanying consequences.
“This brings along with its development challenges, and of course when the heat is so much it can result in some of the things we are seeing in our region,” she explained.
She indicated that the ECOWAS regional integration efforts would help promote interaction, trade, and a prosperous economic life for the citizens of the region, which would contribute to reducing those coup d’état-related factors and ensuring peace within the region.
She said people in the region would not be able to access the benefits of the ECOWAS Protocols if they did not have the knowledge and understanding of the extent of the benefits of the protocols that were available to them.
The Ambassador said that was part of the reasons that had made it imperative that all member states should sensitise their citizens to what they stand to gain if those protocols were effectively implemented.
She explained that the ECOWAS protocol had provided for the free movement of goods and persons within the community and the right to establish themselves in member-state countries.
Ambassador Dufu, however, observed that the challenge in the full implementation of that protocol was integrating the protocols into the laws of member states to make it a reality.
“The challenge since this has been in place is that after all these protocols have been agreed member states are to localise it in their own laws and to remove barriers that exist within their legal systems to make this a reality.
In many places, some of the barriers still exist but it’s a work in progress”, she said, and called for the support of the citizens within the community in realising that objective.
Naa Seidu Braimah Nubalanaang, the Paramount Chief of the Guli Traditional Area in the Wala Traditional Council, expressed worry about the growing spate of coup d’états in the West Africa sub-region.
He called on the leadership of the regional bloc to re-examine itself and to put in the appropriate measures to end the coup d’états within the bloc.
“When we meet at the highest levels, we should not just go there to take tea and other things, chat and come back, let’s look at these things.
If sincerely, we had good governance in this part of the world I don’t think that these coup d’états will be happening,” the revered chief said.
Representatives of traditional and religious leaders, Civil Society Organisations, students, security agencies, and the media participated in the workshop.
