Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has cautioned world leaders against ignoring the values of soft power in the search for lasting peace, stressing that military capabilities alone have not made the world safe.
Jonathan also charged nations to prioritise education and strengthening of family values, as means of reinforcing stronger bonds of kinship that would discourage youths from resorting to violent crimes. He made the assertions yesterday at the opening plenary of the ongoing World Summit on Peace, Security and Human Development in Seoul, South Korea.
His words: “I believe that the weapon for guaranteeing the peace the world needs today is not in our intimidating armoury and sophisticated nuclear sites, but in our hearts.
“The world looks up to us as leaders to reach out to the innermost recesses of our hearts, levering our common humanity and embracing one another in true love and sincerity to save our peoples.“It is obvious that military capability alone has not served the intended purpose of securing our world. In the Middle East and Africa, more than other parts of the world, insecurity, insurgency and terrorism have continued to worsen, despite all efforts to combat them and enforce peace by affected nations and their allies.
“This is partly because we have paid more attention to our military might more than we have given to promoting understanding, building honour and love in our families and societies.”
Speaking further on family values, Jonathan who is Chairman of the African chapter of the International Summit Council for Peace (ISCP), said, “A peaceful family unit entrenched in strong bonds of kinship, ethics and a well-established tradition of honour will fight insecurity and terrorism better than any weapons.
“This is because if we pay more attention to producing well-adjusted, rationale human beings, it will dry up human supply lines that feed cells of terrorists.
“They will no longer be able to recruit misguided and uneducated youths, who are willing to either kill or be killed in the most dastardly and bizarre method in pursuit of dark and hideous ideologies.” He stressed that with well-educated and properly aligned youth who are future leaders the world would have less leaders who prioritise war over peace.
“Without global peace, the world will continue to spend more resources, which should have been channeled into development purposes, either generating or managing crisis,” he added. Over 5, 000 delegates, 210 leaders and top government officials from across the world are expected to attend the three-day conference.
