Nigeria Rejects Plan To Split AU Political Affairs, Peace, Security Department

ABUJA – Nigeria has opposed a proposal to restructure the African Union’s Department of Political Affairs, Peace, and Security (PAPS), warning that such a move could lead to unnecessary expenditures and disrupt ongoing peace and security efforts across the continent.

Nigerian diplomat, Ambassador Bankole Adeoye, heads the department. He was re-elected to another term at the 38th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government, which ended Sunday.

President Bola Tinubu said Nigeria supported the idea of reforming the union but argued that creating another department out of an existing one would increase spending.

President Bola Tinubu, whose statement was delivered by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Am­bassador Yusuf Tuggar, during the consideration and delibera­tion on the AU reforms report, commended his Rwanda and Kenya counterparts, Paul Kag­ame and Williams Ruto, for the reform proposals.

In the intervention delivered by Ambassador Tuggar, Presi­dent Tinubu rejected the proposal to create a new department out of the existing Department of Polit­ical Affairs, Peace and Security.

“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.

“We already have a SOD un­der the Directorate of PAPS. We cannot have a Peace Support Operations Directorate indepen­dent of the Directorate of Polit­ical Affairs, Peace and Security. 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,” President Tinubu said.

On the need for inclusiveness and transparency as an integral part of the reform of the AU system, President Tinubu noted that the continental organisa­tion 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 at one sweep, we should concen­trate on areas where we have al­ready reached consensus. There is no harm in carrying out reform in phases. It would be an error to continue seeking consultation on all fronts in perpetuity,” President Tinubu emphasised.

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.