Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo wants Africa to build its security capacity to deal with challenges on the continent.

Mr Obasanjo, who is Chairman of the Tana African Security Forum, expressed the sentiments at a meeting in Addis Ababa Friday.

He said the upcoming Tana Forum will explore how far African leaders were engaged in shaping the global security agenda.

Infrastructure

The former Nigerian leader has been board chairman of the Tana High-level Forum on Security in Africa for the past five years.

“What can we [African countries] do by ourselves when the international community comes up to work with us,” Mr Obasanjo asked, stating that the continent needed to first build its own security infrastructure before running to seek help from the international partners on major security issues.

Challenges

“They can’t say what happens in Africa won’t interest them,” Mr Obasanjo said, mentioning how the rest of the world was being affected negatively by the recent security challenges of Africa such as the Ebola epidemic and migration.

The Tana Forum deputy chairman, Prof Andreas Eshete, said that beyond advancing its own security agenda, Africa could also play a major role in shaping the global one.

Mr Obasanjo noted that while some leaders could be responsible for the absence of security in their countries because of their failure to properly manage diversity, Africans should not be blamed entirely for all security problems on the continent such as the border conflicts inherited from former colonisers, or the ongoing civil strife in Libya.

The theme

The fifth round of Tana Forum with the theme; Africa in global security agenda, will be held in Bahir Dar City, the capital of Amhara Region of Ethiopia from April 16 -17.

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former South African President Taboo Mbeki, Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, among others, were expected to attend this year’s forum.