Tinubu to AU leaders: Nigeria ready to host African Central Bank

President Bola Tinubu says Nigeria is ready to host the African Central Bank in line with the vision of the Abuja Treaty.

Tinubu said this 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, on Saturday, February 17, 2024.

The president said his administration will engage the African Union Commission in collaboration with member states to ensure that the African Central Bank takes off as scheduled in 2028.

He stated that Africa’s success in conclusively addressing its challenges hinges on the firmness of its resolution, built on a foundation of deep-rooted solidarity if it is to avoid perpetuating existing problems and creating new ones.

President Tinubu said: “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.

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“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.”

Speaking on the military takeovers in the Republics of Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, and the exit of three of these nations from ECOWAS, Tinubu 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,” Tinubu was quoted as saying in a statement issued by his spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale.

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.

In Nigeria, my administration is devoting ample resources to education at all levels. From redesigning our school feeding programmes and academic curricula to making ourselves an Information and Communication Technology hub, through which we shall bring more youths into the classroom and furnish them with the tools required to flourish in the global economy of the 21st century,” he added.

The Star