AfricaNews had exclusive interview with Dr. Kwesi Anning at his office at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Centre in Accra, Ghana.
Below is the full text of the interview.

AfricaNews: What is your initial observation of the disturbances in Nigeria and in Jos for instance?

Dr. Aning: Well, what is happening in Nigeria irrespective of whether it is a disturbance or not, is a crisis of governance in all its aspects. It is a crisis of governance in the way that they ran their economy, there is a crisis of governance in the way that they deal with security sector; there is a crisis of governance in the way that their politics is ran, there is a crisis of governance in the way that civil-military relations are dealt with.

This crisis is related to the way that religious groups relate to each other. This is a country that is so far powerful but unfortunately those who rule that country do not seem to be aware of the extent of their power. That does not make it only dangerous to Nigeria itself but it threatens Nigeria’s cohesion as a unitary state and that threat to Nigeria’s cohesion is what should border every single West African.

AfricaNews: So in that effect can you say that Nigeria is heading towards a failed state?

Dr. Aning: I think I wouldn’t say that it’s heading towards a failed state but I think what is happening is that what we experienced is exposing the depth Nigeria’s fragility. It is basically showing that all the hype that we have about Nigeria is just not right.

AfricaNews: You’ve mentioned that the disturbances in Jos are not only a crisis of governance but other factors as well, now, are those the only underlining factors that brought about the crisis in Jos?

Dr. Aning: When a state begins to show levels of fragility, it’s ability to predict, it’s ability to mediate tensions, its ability to reconcile differences and its ability to resolve those tensions and differences is either nonexistent or is at best very low and I think what Jos has shown us is that Nigeria has failed woefully to bring the state together and to bring the different groups together.

When I talk about crisis of governance in all its multiple cases, it also reflects the shear greed of politicians in exploiting some of these religious differences that basically has led to what is happening.

AfricaNews: What can ECOWAS do for Nigeria?

Dr. Aning: I think ECOWAS’ hands are terribly tight. You see, any international organisation located in a particular country always has to work on a very tight rope, tight rope of ensuring that it does not cross the boundary between its international obligations but more important when you have a country like Nigeria that pays most of the bills you don’t want to fool around. So that is the challenge that ECOWAS is facing. You would notice that ECOWAS has been generally weak in terms of engaging member states when it has an internal crisis.

But when the crisis spills over then it can talk or when it’s a deliberate flouting of accepted rules like in the coup in Niger for instance or when Mamadou Tandja changed the constitution. When it’s the states’ inability to manage religious and ethnic tensions then I think ECOWAS’ responsive mechanisms are very weak, terribly weak and I think that is one of the things that we need to put across.

AfricaNews: What can other counties like Ghana learn from the Nigerian crisis?

Dr. Aning: Ghana doesn’t want to learn from anything, I don’t think we should fool ourselves; we are not ready to learn. I mean, we like pointing fingers at other people unwilling enough to prepare and accept that we have problems ourselves to tackle. So if we were to be hypothetical on what Ghana must learn from Nigeria then we should pull back from the brink. The police in Tamale (northern region of Ghana) should not be collaborating with the Azoka Boys, I think the IGP should call Alhaji Mucta Bamba and say look if you form your Bamba Boys it contradicts the rules because it’s a militia.

I think we should be de-emphasizing our thirst and our love for money in this country, all this cocaine flowing in and out should bother us. We should be careful about the way that we use all means necessary to win political power and political might. We should also be careful about language, because if Ghana doesn’t learn all these things and begin to pull away from the brink then I think what is happening in Jos can happen in Ghana very easily.

Now if you were in Ghana a year and a half ago that is December 28-31 2008, you will remember how close we ourselves came and we haven’t discuss as a nation why we came that close and what helped us to pull from the brink taking it for granted that we are so peaceful. If we don’t make conscious effort to

AfricaNews: Does West Africa face a very bleak future in terms of security and all that?

Dr. Aning: The violent wars that we saw earlier on is not going to happen again but there all new threats and new frontiers of violent in West Africa. One is the narcotics case and the whole of West has become the den for narcotics business and that is a serious challenge.

The youth bulge is a problem, restricted political space so yes in the coming years West Africa will face some very turbulent regimes. I’m not too sure whether we can resolve it.