Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday advocated dialogue in the resolution of various conflicts in Africa.
He made the call at a Youth leadership symposium with the theme: “Opportunities for Peace: Roles of The Youths in Conflict Prevention in Africa,” held in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
The programme was put together by the Centre for Human Security and Dialogue in collaboration with the Institute for African Culture and International Understanding, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library as part of activities lined up for the former president’s 87th birthday.
He urged people on the continent to embrace love, and tolerance and see peace as a panacea for economic growth and prosperity instead of pushing forward hatred and negative attitudes that brew conflicts.
The former Nigerian leader charged youths to stand firmly against conflicts in any part of Africa.
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Obasanjo said: “We must begin to bring up our youths in the culture of peace and security. The chances are that where we have a culture of love, we will have peace.
“The first thing to do is to inculcate in the youths the ingredients of peace which is love and fellowship.
“Look at the attributes that God gave us to have a life of stability, life of peace, they are as I mentioned, kindness, mercy, and forgiveness.
“All of these attributes are professed by God and he shared the same with us to make life pleasant for us. But when we build negative attitudes and pull him down, then there will be problems.
“The youth must be at the vanguard of pursuing peace. They must be able to persuade those who believe that gun and violence is the way out of conflicts to have a rethink, the way out is conversation and dialogue.
“We have had our issues here during the civil war; we killed ourselves mercilessly and destroyed our best facilities. But we still came back to the roundtable to get the challenge resolved.”