President Goodluck Jonathan Wednesday pledged to continue to promote peace in Nigeria and on the continent as he received the prestigious Africa Peace Award from the United Religious Initiatives (URI).
While accepting the award which was presented to him at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the President noted that there can be no meaningful economic development in an atmosphere of crisis and instability.
He said frequent fighting cannot bring about the much desired growth, noting that the leaderships of the African Union and ECOWAS are now interested in helping African States to achieve sustainable peace.
President Jonathan said, “Even when countries are fighting at the end of the day they will still come on the dialogue table to resolve. They have hardly solve through the barrel of the gun, even if you had the most sophisticated weapon to fight, they will still come to negotiate otherwise you can never live in peace.
“So let me call on all Nigerians especially the young people, if you come to the South of this country you hear about militancy, kidnapping and if you go to the North you have this issue of Boko Haram.
“For us to develop our country we must all embrace peace. There is no way the government can perform magic when the people are shooting guns, because economic growth and development is in the hands of the private sector” the president said.
“There cannot be economic development without peace. For you to develop economically there must be peace and political stability. So the leaderships of African Union and ECOWAS have changed and we believe that we must help ourselves and help our states and govern our states the way it should be governed. If there are crises we should intervene and that has been helping us significantly”
President Jonathan dedicated the award to all Nigerians, assuring that he would continue to promote issues that would guarantee peace and political stability in Nigeria and on the continent.
He spoke further, “This award is dedicated to my people and my country Nigeria. We couldn’t have been qualified for this award if my people did not encourage me. Nigeria, somehow, God has given us that unique privilege to be fairly more robust than some of our African countries and we are one of the African countries that the whole world look up to, to assist in one way or the other. So this award is for Nigeria and not for Goodluck Jonathan.
“We would continue to our best. For me as an individual, I will continue to play my role in spite of the challenges. Let me use this unique opportunity to call on all Nigerians and all the people of the world to embrace peace. You cannot talk about development when you are fighting”.
While presenting the award, the Regional Director of URI, Ambassador Mussie Hailu, said it was in recognition of President Jonathan’s immense contributions to religious harmony in Nigeria and peace keeping operations under the United Nations.
“We have been following with great interest the great role the president play in his country, West Africa and Africa as a whole since he took office as President of Nigeria. We commend his leadership qualities in West African sub region in particular as ECOWAS Chairman and also lauded the current transformation agenda of his administration”, he said.
The award, he said has no monetary attachment, saying it was meant to honour people who have distinguished themselves and exhibited exceptional leadership qualities.
President Jonathan now joins the league of previous recipients of the award including former President of Mozambique, Joaquin Chissano, Girma Woldegiorgis of Ethiopia, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso.
