Addis Ababa, Feb. 17, 2024 – President Bola Tinubu has expressed Nigeria’s readiness to host the African Central Bank in line with the vision of the Abuja Treaty.
Tinubu said this on Saturday while addressing African leaders at the 37th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
He said Nigeria would engage the African Union Commission in collaboration with member states to ensure that the bank takes off as scheduled in 2028.
Ajuri Ngelale, the Presidential Spokesman, in a statement, said Tinubu categorised challenges facing the continent as external and internal.
“As a continent and as individual nations, we face strong headwinds and difficult hurdles threatening to complicate our mission to bring qualitative democratic governance and economic development to our people.
“Many of these obstacles, such as climate change and unfair patterns of global trade, are largely not of our making.
“However, some of the pitfalls, including coup-birthed autocracies and the deleterious tinkering with constitutional tenure provisions, are developmental cancers we as Africans are giving to ourselves,” he said.
On coups in the Republics of Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, and the exit of three of these nations from ECOWAS, the President said disagreements over the unconstitutional changes of government should not mean a permanent rupture of the abiding lines of regional affinity and cooperation.
“The drive for a peaceful, strong, and united West Africa is bigger than any one person or group of people. The bonds of history, culture, commerce, geography, and brotherhood hold deep meaning for our people. Thus, out of the dust and fog of misunderstanding and acrimony, we must seize the chance to create a new people-centric era of trust and accord.
“To all who care to listen, I declare that if you come to the table to discuss important matters in good faith, you will find Nigeria and ECOWAS already sitting there waiting to greet you as the brother that you are,” President Tinubu said.
On education, which is the theme of this year’s summit, the President said education is the core ingredient in the process of evolving creative solutions to the unique challenges long confronting the continent. (GBN)
