President Muhammadu Buhari has said the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been universally acclaimed as a model regional economic community.
The President who addressed the 48th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Summit of Heads of State and Government in Abuja today, explained that the Organization has recorded concrete achievements which loudly speak for themselves.
Buhari noted however that in spite of the significant achievements, the Community still faces numerous challenges, adding that while some of such challenges militate against the integration drive, others continue to pose risks to peace and security, as well as political stability in the region.
“There are also structural and administrative challenges in running the Commission that equally require serious attention.
“Security challenges persist in our region as we continue to be confronted with the daunting scourge of transnational organized crime including arms trafficking, drug trafficking, as well as piracy and criminality at sea.
“Equally worrying is the rising scourge of violent extremism and terrorism. All this constitute serious threats to peace and security in the region, and therefore require our urgent and concerted actions.
“Regional and indeed global solidarity is vital in our efforts to counter these threats. To this end, we must continue to enhance our system of governance and, working with our partners, accelerate the implementation of our joint initiatives and mechanisms created to address these daunting but not insurmountable risks.
“As we do so, we should not relent in our effort to engage with member states coming out of crises, in order to help them to consolidate on the achievements made.”
President Buhari said that the catastrophic consequences of climate change are manifest in the region, saying that a number of fragilities, conflicts and environmental degradation that affect the member countries today with serious negative impact on peace, security, economy and livelihoods are either directly or indirectly triggered by climate change.
He said that no country could alone be able to reverse or stop some of these consequences, as it requires huge investment of resources far beyond our capabilities.
“We should therefore continue to press for international assistance and to work with the rest of the world to protect the environment. We should do so without loosing focus on our industrial development objectives. Our efforts to fast track regional integration should also be informed by the requirement for clean source of energy. In this regard, I welcome the agreed outcome of the just concluded COP21 in Paris, which aims at reducing global warming and providing for financial support to developing nations.”
“We must also continue to cooperate with our development partners, and take advantage of their willingness to support our initiatives to address all these challenges in the most appropriate and beneficial ways to our region and to global peace and security.”
Buhari said that Nigeria would like to see that on-going reforms in ECOWAS institutions are concluded and firmly entrenched to ensure greater effectiveness in leading the integration process.
“We would like to see that the resources of the Community are devoted to the implementation of economic programs that would enable us build a prosperous region.”
He expressed his strong belief in the vast potentialities of the region, stressing that he remains confident that under the leadership of the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government, Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal, the Community will continue to make steady progress towards achieving the goals for which it was founded. [myad]
