Dr. Babatunde Tolu Afolabi is the Director of Political Affairs at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission. A Political Scientist by training, he is a seasoned expert in peace and security matters with broad experience garnered across Africa. In this Interview with NEHRU ODEH, he speaks about his time at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, HD, where he worked for 10 years, what he plans to do at ECOWAS, the special commendation he received from Obasanjo in late November 2022, how to solve insecurity in Nigeria and sundry issues.
Q: Could you speak a bit about what you do?
A: In terms of what I do, I’m a trained political scientist. I studied political science, international relations, and peace studies. I pride myself on being a political scientist, but with a particular interest in international relations, especially around the issues of war, war prevention, geopolitics, geostrategy and peacemaking. I have, for the past ten years, focused almost exclusively on peacemaking. Until very recently, I had worked with the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, HD, which is a Swiss private diplomacy foundation, for ten years. Some people call it an NGO. And before becoming the regional director for Africa, I had served as the HD’s country manager for Nigeria. I did that for three years, and then went on to become the Regional Director, Africa for seven years. And of course, HD’s work revolves around the prevention, mitigation, and resolution of armed conflict. HD also specialises in engaging hard-to-reach groups, entities that a lot of people refer to as terrorists. We refer to them as armed insurgents because we pride ourselves on our neutrality, as well. We feel that if you’re going to be impartial and engage these conflict actors, we have to be impartial. If you’ve made a judgment of who they are, it becomes difficult to engage.
So, it’s part of what we do, just maintain our impartiality, and that helps us to engage. We also pride ourselves on our discreetness, our discretion. We’re quite careful with the information we share because to engage some of the most difficult, hard-to-reach groups in the world, you have to build a measure of trust. And HD has been able to talk to and engage actively for political processes, some of these, if not most of these entities that make the headlines al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, the Taliban, ETA in Spain, etc. Of course, one way to build and maintain trust is to be measured in how you say things, and what you say when you engage these parties. So, that has been my journey so far.
Apart from having been a regional director for HD and now, very recently, becoming the ECOWAS Director of Political Affairs, I also have undertaken some research. I still engage in research. I am currently an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Peace and Strategic Studies at the University of Ilorin. I am also an Associate Fellow at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, the NIIA, in Lagos. From time to time, I write and publish in academic journals. Once in a while, I write op-eds on issues that I find topical and important. I have also authored a book on mediation and peace processes in Africa.
Q: You just returned to ECOWAS as the Director of Political Affairs. How does that make you feel? Looking ahead, how do you see yourself working as ECOWAS Director of Political Affairs in a sub-region marked by political instability, conflicts, terrorism and banditry?
A: I think it’s a huge responsibility. I see it as a position that requires a lot of service to the West African community. It’s immense because it has different layers of engagement. There are elements of democracy, good governance, human rights, and the rule of law on the one hand. There are elements of helping to prevent conflicts, mitigate conflicts, resolve armed conflicts, and political disputes between political actors, leaders, and the opposition, for example. There are also elements of helping to deepen democracy and the rule of law, supporting electoral processes across West Africa. So, it’s a multi-layered engagement. The good thing, perhaps, is that I’m not new to ECOWAS.
I had previously served the Commission for six years in a less senior capacity, but of course, I was able to work on different things. I was part of the team that helped conceptualise and operationalise the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework, which is ECOWAS’ normative instrument that seeks to help with the structural and operational elements of conflict prevention. I had, in the past, worked as a secretary to the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, a body of eminent statesmen and stateswomen from various walks of life mandated by ECOWAS to help in mediating conflicts across the sub-region.
I have been involved in a good number of peace processes, political dialogue processes at ECOWAS. Of course, at HD, I did a lot of work on mediation beyond West Africa. I did work in various places on various conflict issues, especially in the volatile Horn of Africa, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Eritrea to some extent.
I had done some work in Southern Africa, Mozambique, to be precise. I had done some work in Liberia and in Nigeria as well. So, I hope that the experience and the lessons I have drawn and learned over the years will help me contribute my quota to our sub-region, where West Africa is in a particularly difficult place right now in terms of instability. You have the scourge of coup d’etats, democratic regression almost across board in terms of the reduction in the quality of the democratic order. It is not just enough to conduct elections every four or five years and say this is a democracy. The dividends of democracy have to be felt by the people. And if they don’t feel it, then it could take over democracy and encourage those with authoritarian tendencies to take over, under the guise of safeguarding the country and protecting the integrity of the state, etc.
So, it’s an interesting time to return to ECOWAS. It’s an interesting time to help with the efforts already existing. I, of course, must admit that a lot of work is ongoing. You know about the Alliance of Sahel States, AES, those Sahelian states that have left the fold. I think it is important to try to get them back, if not immediately, at least in the short to mid-term, to help them forge a working arrangement. Because not only do we still share borders with them, but they are our brothers and sisters. We are a sub-region, have a shared history and community, and whatever affects them affects us and vice versa. There has to be a way to find a working formula for us to engage.
There is also, of course, the issue of geopolitics, which is becoming quite a feature in this part also. It’s more prevalent in the Horn of Africa, where you have countries with interests in strategic rare earth minerals, natural resources, and control of territory or a region. That is prevalent in those parts, but it’s also increasingly becoming an issue in West Africa. So, it would be good to have a sophisticated understanding of what these issues are and what they mean for the ECOWAS agenda, which, of course, is to foster prosperity for the people of West Africa, to create an environment for regional integration, to bring home the dividends, if you like. So, being the Director of Political Affairs is a part of the various elements that need to come together in order for us to have a peaceful and prosperous West Africa.
Q: Do you think there is a common ground between those countries in the Alliance of Sahel States and ECOWAS, considering the differences?
A: There are differences, but there are also similarities. As I said, we share borders with them. Burkina Faso shares a border with Ghana. Nigeria shares a border with Niger. Mali shares borders with many ECOWAS States, even beyond West Africa to parts of North Africa. We have to work together. We face the same challenges, extremism, or if you like, terrorism. We have the same issues of desertification, the negative effects of climate change on agriculture, whether it’s in terms of farming or in terms of pastoralism. These are shared challenges. The Sahel, as you know, is a difficult terrain. Some of these countries are part of the Sahel, whether they are AES or ECOWAS today. A lot of the criminality, a lot of the illegality that is being perpetrated is also done across borders. Some criminals operate and run from Niger or Chad into Nigeria, into Cameroon. When they are attacked and feel threatened, they run across borders. There has to be collaboration. There has to be a working formula for the countries to work together to safeguard their territory and think about prosperity.
Q: You have a lot of experience and are widely travelled. What has been your experience going into such very difficult terrains to support mediation efforts in conflict situations? How have you been able to navigate your way through those terrains?
A: It depends. I think it’s a function of many things. Of course, there are rules of engagement when it comes to these things. You cannot, for example, say that because you want to mediate with a prescribed group in Somalia you just walk in without taking certain steps. You can, for example, decide to engage them in dialogue in a neutral country, or in a third country. Of course, they have to agree to those things. Sometimes you break the odds, and you take the risk. That has happened a few times. I remember the last two times that I was in Mogadishu last year, I think, middle or toward end of last year. There were two mortar attacks, interestingly. I recall that on one occasion, I couldn’t even make it to the bunker on time, so I had to hide in my room and follow the protocols and ensure that I kept my head low, etc.
There are times when you also have to work with countries that are to host such talks in the event of a peace talk, even with really dangerous prescribed groups. Some countries are usually willing to just host the talks. Of course, it confers a lot of prestige on them to say, well, we signed a peace agreement, and it is therefore called, for example, the Zanzibar Agreement or the Zanzibar Accord. It portrays those countries that have hosted the talks in a positive light. You host the talks, the Zanzibar Accord, you have the Nairobi Agreement, and more often than not, beyond the prestige, they also benefit. If there is an agreement to be signed between insurgent groups in East Africa, and Kenya, for example, hosts them, helps provide the atmosphere, the right conditions for peace talks, and even serves as a guarantor to the peace processes, the economy benefits from it.
A more peaceful sub-region means more prosperity, more cross-border trade, more cultural intercourse across borders between peoples, and these things usually lead to more opportunities. Again, it depends on what conflict issues we are talking about, what specific actors we are dealing with, what the interests are, and also the conditions, the rightness or the lack of it for such interventions. There are no two cases that are the same. It’ s different dynamics, different dimensions. Sometimes you know that certain armed groups have confidence or, for example, they may want to internationalise the conflict. I’ve seen that a few times, whereby the armed insurgent group wants to put itself out there on the map, and they therefore, as a precondition for talks, insist on getting either a middle power or a global power to mediate or serve as a guarantor or as an observer in such processes.
Of course, beyond the international conflicts, there have also been several conflicts that are sub-state in nature. For example, in parts of the Middle Belt of Nigeria, where as much as those conflicts do not attract the UN or the African Union or ECOWAS, they still impact millions of people, on the livelihoods of millions of people across the world, across borders, etc. So, it’s different methods, different approaches, different mediators for different conflict situations.