Addressing “root causes” to resolve conflicts in Africa: Biya’s charity that begins abroad!.

Ironically, when President Biya takes to the international podium, he advocates dialogue, reconciliation, and examining root causes of conflicts.

For example, during the 21st Extraordinary Session of the African Union, AU, in Luanda, Angola, at the weekend, the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Dr Chief Joseph Dion Ngute, who represented him, insisted on “...efforts to tackle the root causes of conflicts: poverty, youth unemployment, violent extremism, and trafficking”.

The session, with theme: “Strengthening conflict prevention and resolution in Africa," among other things, focused on assessing and finding lasting solutions to ongoing conflicts in the continent, such as that in Sudan, the Sahel, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC.

It is a paradox that the conflict in the North West and South West Regions that has killed over 6,000 compatriots, was not discussed. The goal, however, was to boost early warning systems, address terrorism, and advance sustainable funding for African-led peace operations

Reading President Biya’s speech at the Assembly of Heads of State and Governments, the PM Dion Ngute, said dialogue is a panacea to conflicts resolution. He added that the continent already possesses an established institutional framework, developed for preventing and resolving conflicts, which, he said, only needs to be fully operational.

“To this end, Cameroon underscores the strategic importance of the Continental Logistics Base, hosted on its territory and reaffirms its commitment to African mediation. The phrase ‘African solutions to African problems’ should therefore become a working method, rather than merely a lofty aspiration,” Dion Ngute said. 

From scholars to politicians and researchers, there have been the sing song of “African solutions to African problems”. 

But in reality, it has been a myth. Has Africa, for instance, made any efforts to resolve the armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions?

Isn’t it countries like Switzerland and Canada, that are known to have offered a mediating role? What has the African Union, AU, done when elections are rigged in most African countries sparking violence?

Even at the United Nations, UN, Africa has always been disunited, fragmented, abstaining from critical votes and weakened, when it comes to taking a ballot against Israel, or Russia, just to name two cases.

Researchers have noted the African dependency paradox. Even when African countries want to settle their own problems, finance is offered from different continents.

Take the case of the AU mission in Somalia. It relied almost entirely on funding from the European Union, EU and the United States of America. 

According to AU reports, more than 60% of its peace and security budget has historically been financed by external donors, particularly the European Union.

There are other reports that “more than half of the African Union's budget relies on foreign donors, foreign aid, infrastructure financing, and loans that heavily influence how individual states vote to avoid angering powerful global allies”. 

Such dependency erodes credibility and makes African-led solutions vulnerable to shifting donor priorities. It equally raises doubts about whether the solutions are truly self-determined.

Apart from finance, other impediments include regional rivalries and the mistrust that have often derailed collective efforts. 

The recent decision by Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, to withdraw from ECOWAS and form the Alliance of Sahel States, underscores just how fragile solidarity can be.

Most importantly, Africa’s 54 countries have a mix of stable democracies, military juntas, transitional governments and what some media organs have styled “Royal Presidencies.”

They prefer, for instance, to prevent African solutions by terming their conflicts as “internal affairs”.

“African solutions to African problems” was coined by the Ghanaian economist, George Ayittey, in response to the crisis in Somalia, in the early 1990s.

His logic at the time was that “outside attempts to resolve African problems have regularly proven ineffective and even counterproductive” and that any “long-term solution to problems can come only from Africans themselves”.

All African countries swallowed his advice, hook line and sinker. They have rehearsed it as it was in Angola at the weekend. To quote from President Biya’s speech, they “...reaffirmed our ambition for a peaceful Africa and as the dawn of a new phase in our collective efforts to promote peace and security across our continent. Peace is not a foregone conclusion. It needs to be forged. It needs to be safeguarded. Above all, it should be nurtured”.

At The Guardian Post, we stay with the strong feeling that fostering peace is through dialogue, free, fair, transparent and credible elections, respecting Constitutional term limits, and ending conflicts, beginning with the root causes.

However, the daunting stumbling block for “African solutions to African problems” is the absence of genuine political will as African leaders often undermine collective responses, when their egotistic, not even national interest is threatened.

For African leaders to resolve their problems by themselves, the African Union should be capable of sanctioning leaders who violate democratic ideals. 

But do they have the financial means and political will, when they preach dialogue abroad and military force at home? The answer is embedded in the question. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3896 of Tuesday September 01, 2026