A clergy with the Baptist Church in Nigeria, Rev. Ijasini Jamare Jantiku has said, “anyone who remains silence during injustice is as guilty as the perpetrator of injustice.” He made this statement on Thursday 3rd November 2022 during the fourth-day session of the All Africa Youth Congress organized by the All Africa Conference of Church held at the Pentecost Convention Center Kasao Accra in Ghana.
According to Rev. Fr. Jehophat Calys Tagoe, peace is expressed in the proclamation of the gospel to the poor sighting a scripture in the bible where Jesus said the spirit of God is upon him to preach the good news to the poor and set the captives free. He therefore
Rev Jantiku, is a pastor from Baptist Church in Nigeria in his statement, he encouraged youths to be attentive and active during the congress in the bid to take home good lessons learnt during the congress. He challenged the youths to be patriotic, steadfast, and be change agents as Africa has all they want to achieve their goals. He further introduced the steering committee of the All Africa Youth Congress 2022 which cut across the African countries, they include Daniel Orogo (Kenya, AAYCC Coordinator), Neil Mosema (Botswana), Emmanuel Magar Yayoume (Togo), Paula Lukiko (Uganda), Rev Diamond Mkandawire (Zambia), Alex Akpata (Nigeria), Amos Adjahei (Ghana), Tibonge (Zambia), Alibarike (Tanzania), Grace Mongo (Congo Brazaville), Karabo (South Africa), Delphine Besonge (Cameroon).
Documentary on Silencing the Guns
It started with a documentary on silencing the guns clearly shows that a total of 32 million people became refugees in 2021 due to war and conflict in countries. The documentary admonished youths to rather choose negotiation or dialogue with each other when conflict arises rather than using guns or other weapons that will end up destroying their future and the future of Africa.
The panelist discussions with some of our youth constituted of 4 speakers Arek Francis (South Sudan), Logman Alhalang (Sudan), Souzanne Kayuwa (DRC), and Uddesa Budire (Ethiopia) who extensively discussed action taken by their respective government to fast track the implementation of their National Actions plans on silencing the guns.
In her opening statement the moderator Nyaboth Pasca, said silencing the Guns is an initiative of AU that started in 2013 with the aim of silencing the guns in Africa by 2020. Within that period 2013-2020 Africa has seen more wars, conflicts, violence, military coups and its impacts of Africans. Literally, not much changed and guns were still widely used either by civilians, military, rebels or criminals. In 2021, this initiative was extended by 10 years which indicates that by 2030 Africa should not hear any gunshots.
Logman Alhalang from Sudan stated the growth and development of Africa strongly depends on Youths and one of the reasons why Africa is still underdeveloped cannot be connected with the use of weapons by Africans to destroy Africa. Susan from DRC state that her nation has a lot of political problems even though God has blessed the nation with mineral resources making the country one of the richest in Africa but this mineral resource has created problems in her country among ordinary citizens and politicians. Some couple of years ago there had been a very serious disagreement between RC Congo and Rwanda which led to the loss of many lives and properties. She further said that till date the DRC is not in a better relationship with Rwanda and she pleaded for peace on behalf of her country.
Arek Francis from South Sudan said that Africa is blessed with a lot of goodies which need to be maintained and protected. This according to her cannot be achieved if Africans are not tolerant with each other. Since the war broke out in South Sudan in 2013 and got intensified in 2014 and 2015, the east Africa Union came together in Tanzania in 2017 and signed an agreement to end the war in South Sudan. Although this did not silence the guns among youths especially cattle rears. Yes the gun is only silenced among top government officers and other senior citizens but there are individuals who purchase these guns illegally. Similar statements were made by the other panelist.
In the Main plenary 3, the Director of HORN Institute for strategic studies Dr Hassan Khannenje spoke on A Just and Secure Africa with specific focus on the role of Youth in enhancing a peaceful and secure Africa. He thanks the AACC for organizing what he referred to as a ‘’Mind blowing congress’’ adding it will immediately provides an alternative narrative to that, which portrays youth, primarily as either perpetrators or victims of violence. It tells of the lived experiences and daily endeavours of young African women and men dedicating their time, energy and resources to promote various peace and security initiatives at community, national, regional and continental levels thereby occupying and exploiting both formal and informal spaces, using traditional and new media, forging local and international alliances to design, implement and report on activities to support multilateral institutions and their national governments efforts to maintain peace and security.
For the workshop/side events, the participants were placed into seven groups for in-depth discussion and understanding of various topics ranging from youth for gender justice, Peace and Security in Africa with a focus on the Agenda 2063, “the Africa we Want”, Combating the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light weapons and the issues of violent extremism, Peace and security in Africa with focus in silencing the guns, Public accountability and anti-corruption in Africa, Climate action in lead up to COP 27and post COP, and Health and Healing.
The day was however climaxed with an Exhibition and free time for interaction and relaxation, dinner, evening praise, and worship including cultural performances from West African Countries.
By Dr. Goodness Ene-Bongilli