President Bola Tinubu announced that Nigeria is prepared to host the African central bank, in accordance with the Abuja Treaty’s vision.
The treaty serves as the basis for creating an African common market.
It was adopted on June 3, 1991, and became effective on May 12, 1994.
Tinubu made these remarks on Saturday during the 37th ordinary session of the assembly of heads of state and government of the African Union (AU) in Ethiopia.
He stated that his administration will work with the AU commission and member states to ensure that the bank is established as planned in 2028.
The politician emphasized that Africa’s ability to overcome its challenges depends on its strong determination, which should be based on a strong sense of unity. This is crucial in order to prevent the continuation of current issues and the emergence of new ones.
Tinubu pointed out that the continent’s progress has been hindered by the negative impact of autocracies that originated from coups and by making changes to constitutional term limits.
“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,” the president said.
“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.”
Tinubu emphasized the need to uphold regional solidarity within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in light of the military coups in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
He stated that differences regarding the unconstitutional government changes should not lead to a permanent breakdown of regional unity and collaboration.
“The drive for a peaceful, strong, and united West Africa is bigger than any one person or group of people,” the politician said.
”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.”
Tinubu left Abuja on February 15 to attend the AU summit in Addis Ababa.
