Isaac Terungwa Terwase

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) as an Agency of the African Union was established in 2001 by the African leaders with the view of eradicating poverty in Africa. The NEPAD programme initiatives encompasses the political, economic and social-cultural development of the African states through partnership with the private and public sectors, the international community and countries in and outside Africa. Through thematic areas of NEPAD such as, democracy and political governance has encompassed the peace and security programme initiative of NEPAD as a priority to be achieved. This then forms the objective of this paper to be studied considering the insecurity challenges that faced the Nigerian state as a member of the African Union and co-initiator of the NEPAD programme initiative. Since 2009, the Nigerian state is faced with the activities of the Boko Haram militant group whose engagement has led to activities such as burning and bombing of people's houses, churches, Mosques and public buildings, killing of innocent lives including but not limited to both Christians and Muslims, attack on security operatives and schools which include bombing of structures. This paper therefore, is to study the strategic plan of NEPAD in implementing the peace and security objective for the purpose of promoting peace and political stability in Nigeria. The methodology adopted in this research is the review of previous literature, the use of descriptive, historical, and interpretative methods of analysis, with the available research materials. The findings thus reveal that, issues such as zoning of political and elective positions should be addressed in the Nigerian constitution in order to accommodate the six geopolitical zones so as to promote unity, political stability, peace and security within the Nigerian state.

The Nigerian State before 1999 was ruled by the military for a very long period of time ranging from 1966-1979, and 1983-1999 they have stayed in power and control of Nigerian leadership. Within the said periods, the country was mostly led by the Northern leadership especially from 1983-1999 where leaders such as were all from the North. On the 29 th of May, 1999 ushered in the return to democratic rule and power was shifted to the Southern part of the country under the leadership of Obasanjo 1999-2007. There was in place the principle of zoning and rotation of power between the North and South so as to promote the principle of peace, fairness, equity and justice as it was enshrined within the constitution of the ruling party, the PDP. May 29 th , 2007 brought in another power shift from the South to the North through the leadership of Yar'Adua, who later died in office on the 5 th of May, 2010. Thus, the Vice-President took over power and it returned to the South, he contested in 2011 elections, was opposed by some quarters from the North where violence broke out and the Boko Haram became a tool as posits by late Gen. Andrew Azazi. The objective of the paper is to seek redress on how the conflict can be resolved and to bring to the fore the psychological trauma that the victims have undergone. The paper recommends that the root causes of the conflict should be re-addressed and resolved.

The West African States are known as States with endowed natural and human resources that ought to have an enlargement in the area of economic growth and development. This will help yield results to the countries in West Africa through economic cooperation among states within the region. It is therefore, the goal and objective of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to promote regional integration and cooperation for the purpose of ensuring economic growth and development in the sub-region. The endowed resources in West African states are mostly untapped due to challenges that face the region such as lack of technological know-how, bad governance, political instability, lack of adequate diversification, infrastructure problem, lack of political will and the inability to involve the private sector adequately. Therefore, the objectives of this study is to firstly, create an enabling environment where peace and security is sustainable for West African states to engineer economic governance through regional integration and economic cooperation among the countries in West Africa, and secondly, to enable partnership with the private sector. The methodology used in this research is review of previous literature and the use of content analysis which will also provide useful information on the region. The findings from this study reviews that, peace and security sustainability can only be maintained when the West African States employ the measures that would lead to economic growth and development of the region through provision of job opportunities to the youths, employing the early-warning mechanism, transparency and accountability in governance and good leadership to foster growth of ECOWAS community.

The Nigerian Fourth Republic ushered in a democratically
elected government in 1999 that paved
way for the civilians to take over government after a
long period of military rule in Nigeria. This made
the political parties to project their candidates for
contest in occupying the political positions at the
federal, states and local government levels. Thus,
such projection through the ruling political party that
won the election in 1999 known as the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP), went into zoning arrangement
that could give the country’s six geopolitical
zones a place for participation in the administration
of the country. This arrangement coordinated the
highest positions such as the President, Vice-President,
President of the Senate, Speaker of the House
of Representatives, Secretary to the Government of
the Federation, and Chairman of the ruling party.
However, such arrangements were only practiced from
1999 to 2011. The zoning arrangements were truncated
in 2011, which led to conflict in the Northern
part of the country. The objective of the study therefore,
is to examine the consequences of the truncated
zoning arrangement and lessons from the
Buhari Political tsunami in 2015 general elections
in Nigeria, with interest on how to resolve such conflicts
that emanated. The study made use of qualitative
research and the review of previous literature as
sources of data collection. The findings revealed that, many people were killed during the years 2011-2015 under study; both private and public properties were also destroyed. This study recommends constitutional approach regarding the zoning formula to accommodate all the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria in order to resolve the conflicts therein.