‘Violent, peaceful protests rooted in leadership failure’

• Military force can’t resolve either, scholar warns FG
• Envoy urges Africa to ditch colonial national borders 

Though the widespread peaceful and violent protests that erupted in Nigeria in the past few years may require different management approaches, both are rooted in the recent leadership failure, a Nigerian-British scholar in leadership, peace and conflict, Prof. ‘Funmi Olonisakin, has asserted.
   
The expert stated this during an interview with The Guardian on the sidelines of the ongoing inaugural Annual Peace and Security Dialogue (APSD), hosted by the Thabo Mbeki Foundation (TBF) in Magaliesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa.
 
Addressing the enduring crises, which range from Boko Haram terrorism to banditry and street protests, she argued, would require a paradigm shift in approach to leadership and fixing social challenges that created economic exclusion.
 
The Vice President/Vice Principal of King’s College London warned that extreme violent attacks that heightened security concerns in the country could not be addressed with “only military solutions”, as such tactics had not been effective anywhere in the world, where citizens took up arms against the state.

The scholar argued that “every leadership decision has consequences” for the economy, welfare, future growth and the public good; hence, political leaders could not continue to give excuses for everything.
  
In her presentation at the dialogue, Olonisakin demanded a pragmatic switch to Africa-led solutions to African problems and insisted that the inherited liberal peace formula had been adopted by the continent without thorough interrogation.
 
The need to embrace the African approach resonated across all speeches by scholars and politicians with questions also raised on how Africa could balance political and economic interests.