Algeria, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa form G4 Nations to Tackle Growing Conflicts in Africa

Algeria, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa last week announced the formation of Group of Four Nations (G4) in Brussels, Belgium aiming to deal with various issues confronting Africa, and to strengthen the platform of the continent.

Leaders of the four nations, who met on the sidelines of the 6th EU-AU Summit at Brussels, used the opportunity to discuss crisis areas on the continent with a view to coming up with practical and effective solutions.

Presidents of the four nations stressed the need to reinvigorate the G4 within the AU as a platform for bringing African countries closer, coordinating actions and reactions for the whole continent in a more proactive manner.

They also discussed how they could better take decisions in the AU and how to implement them. They also agreed to convene a formal summit to chart a road map for Africa in the coming months.

The G4 Platform, an initiative of the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, was set up towards discussing and proffering solutions as well as aggregating positions to ensure that the African Union carries its work forward successfully, efficiently and quickly too.

President Buhari and his colleagues stressed the need to reinvigorate the G4 within the African Union (AU) as a platform for bringing African countries closer, coordinating actions and reactions for the whole continent in a more proactive manner and looking at how decisions in the AU could be better implemented.

They also agreed to convene a formal summit to chart a road map for Africa in the coming months.

It referred this absence to conflict of interests between these countries and the G4 nations, noting that the African countries adopt different approaches regarding dealing with major world powers such as the US, EU and China and even Israel.

While the G4 nations maintain harmonious stances towards Palestine, immigration, others including Morocco and Egypt maintain diplomatic relations and full representation with the Israeli occupation.

Meanwhile, Egypt maintains hostile positions towards Ethiopia, which initiated the idea of the G4, due to the differences over the Renaissance Dam.

All the G4 nations have almost the same stance towards the Western Sahara issue, which is completely different to that of Morocco.

source Business Day, MEMO