Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar has underscored the need for Nigeria to continually play key role towards sustainable peace, security and stability in the Sahel region.

Tuggar stated this while delivering a lecture titled: ‘Pathways to peace, security and stability in the Sahel: What Role for Nigeria?’, at the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA), on Tuesday in Abuja.

According to him, the pathways to peace, security and stability in the Sahel are intertwined and interdependent.

Tuggar said: ‘We cannot have one without the other; no peace without security or stability, no security without peace or security and no stability without peace or security.

‘The following is a precis of what I feel Nigeria should be doing to ensure a relatively safe and secure Sahel to its North and I say relative.

‘By its very nature, history and etymology, the Sahel is a very dynamic region prone to fluidity that is often in conflict with centralised state systems.’

The minister explained the word Sahel as originated from
the Arabic Al-Sahil to mean coast or shore of the Sahara.

He said that movement of people, goods, services and ideas within the Sahel and with the outside world led to the creation of a number of states and even empire.

He identified such states to include Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Kanem-Borno and Sokoto among others.

‘There are lessons to learn from the rise and fall of these Sahelian States, in identifying role Nigeria should play in charting pathway to peace, security and stability in the Sahel.

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‘Nigeria must lead the way in relying on empiricism when analysing the Sahel. We must do away with certain exogenous and erroneous perceptions about the Sahel.

‘The Sahel is not an empty ungoverned quarter, a terra nullius. Contrary to that, it has one of the fastest growing populations in the world. Niger currently has population of 24.2 million and is going to have 65 million by 2050.

‘A large part of the Sahelian
populace is Nomadic, which constitutes even more challenges in identifying and pathways to peace, security and stability in the region.

‘There is often an over-simplification that goes thus: the Sahel is sparsely populated by nomadic groups Tuaregs, Bororo, Zaghawa, and many of them tend towards terrorism, and criminal activities.’

He reiterated that Nigeria must as hegemon in the region lead in providing more accurate and factual analyses, and interpretation of events in the Sahel.

He urged the NIA to pave way through its information collection process with more accurate taxonomy and labelling of conflict groups.

He said that not every act of crime, kidnapping for ransom, attack on community, and smuggling of weapons must be ascribed to stand-alone Jihadi or tribal group.

‘We must develop our own insights to what is happening in our neighbourhood instead of relying on those of outsiders, to find pathways to peace, security and stability in the Sahel.

‘Nigeria must lead the way in establishing the guard
rails and we have seen the disastrous outcomes of allowing others frame the narratives in the Sahel.’

Source: News Agency of Nigeria