A peacebuilding organization, Foundation for Peace Professionals also known as PeacePro has called on the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari and indeed the African Union (AU) to initiate move to mediate in the ongoing crisis between Russia and Ukraine, instead of taking sides in a crisis they don’t have full understanding.
PeacePro also said that, taking sides in the conflict will be premature and counter productive, especially since most countries are yet to fully understand the circumstances that led to the conflict, neither has United Nations, saddled with responsibility to maintain global Peace made any resolution.
Executive Director of PeacePro, Mr Abdulrazaq Hamzat made this position while speaking with the press in ilorin, the Kwara State Capital during the week, explaining that the spirit of international law and order is to address issues of global peace and security in a collaborative manner, not take side in a conflict situation in a manner that makes every member of the global community a party to the conflict, leaving no room for mediators to address the situation in an apolitical manner.
“While it maybe tempting to want to take side as a result of political pressure and media propaganda, it is more profitable to engage both sides of the conflict at the highest level and continue to prevail on them both to tow the path of reason” Hamzat said.
According to him, unilateral action by individual nations, in terms of sanctions against one party over the other amounts to undermining the United Nations capability to respond appropriately and that will escalate, not de-escalate the situation.
“United Nations must be allowed to lead de-escalation process and coordinate an appropriate response, adding that “History had shown that, sanctions has never been an effective tool for resolving any conflict, neither has it worked in softening any nation from pursuing what it deemed necessary during conflict, instead it hardened them and led to further escalation”
PeacePro therefore called on the United Nations to lead the process of joint problem solving and prevail on individual nations taking unilateral action to key into the UN led process.
Global response should seek to resolve, not escalate the already bad development, Hamzat said.
