TITLE: Mediating for Peace in Africa: A Festschrift in Honour of General Abdulsalami Abubakar
EDITORS: Isaac Albert, Mohammed Yahaya & Babafemi Badejo
CATEGORY: Non-fiction / Essays
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2022
PAGES: 500
REVIEWER: Prof Ibrahim A. Gambari, CFR, OCORT
PROTOCOLS
INTRODUCTION
1. It is with some trepidations that I stand before this exalted audience to review this festschrift in honour of H.E. General Abdulsalami Abubakar, GCFR, because it is like writing a confidential report on a former Head of State of Nigeria and who was also twice my direct boss – first, as his Ambassador to the United Nations and second, as a member of the Nigerian Peace Committee of which he is Chairman. However, I feel encouraged and honoured to do so for the same reasons and more, the title of the book, Mediating for Peace in Africa, is also a subject on which I have also been engaged for a huge portion of my adult life. Moreover, by a remarkable coincidence General Abubakar, was my exact contemporary secondary school from 1957 to 1962; he at famous Bida Government Secondary School and this reviewer at the Ilorin Provincial (now Government) Secondary School. Moreover, the three editors of the book, Professors Isaac Olawale Albert, Babafemi A. Badejo and Mohammed Kuta Yahaya, are my personal friends and academic colleagues.
II. THE MAN AT THE CENTRE OF THE BOOK
2. Here’s what you need to understand about Gen. Abubakar. In June 1998, Nigeria’s military ruler, Sani Abacha, died suddenly. The country was a powder keg. International sanctions, ethnic tensions running high, and the military entrenched in power for fifteen years left civil society screaming for democracy. Abubakar became head of state, and everyone expected more of the same.
3. Instead, he did something almost unheard of in African politics; he kept his word. Eleven months. That’s all he took. He organised elections, handed power to a civilian president, and walked away. No lifetime presidency, no manufactured crisis to stay in power, no emergency decree. Just a clean transition. I’ve seen many promises broken in my time. Abubakar’s promise in 1999 stands out like a lighthouse.
4. But here’s the thing; that transition wasn’t just good politics. It became his credential for everything that followed. When you’ve voluntarily given up power in a country like Nigeria, people listen when you talk about peace. They trust you. That’s the foundation on which this whole book rests.
5. And understand this too: Nigeria in 1998 wasn’t some small country you could manage with a few phone calls. We’re talking about over 100 million people, 250 ethnic groups, and religious divisions that could tear the place apart if mishandled. He had to navigate the military establishment, which didn’t want to lose power; the international community, which was fed up with Nigeria’s pariah status; and ordinary Nigerians who’d been promised democracy before and disappointed. He pulled it off. That tells you something about his character and capabilities.
III. THE BOOK: MEDIATING FOR PEACE IN AFRICA
6. A Festschrift, for those who do not speak academic German, is essentially a collection of essays honouring someone’s work.
7. Part One looks at the big picture: peace processes, how mediation actually works, the role of regional organisations such as ECOWAS and the African Union, what makes Track Two diplomacy tick, and how you get women into peace talks where men have monopolised the table for centuries. These chapters tackle the frameworks and theories, but they’re grounded in real cases. You’re reading about Liberia, Sierra Leone, Niger, and the Gambia; places where Abubakar actually did the work.
8. Part Two delves into the specifics. Chapter after chapter on individual countries, conflicts, and peace processes. The contributors include former presidents, current mediators, academics who’ve been studying this for decades, and civil society activists who’ve been in the trenches. That mix is crucial. You get both the view from the presidential suite and the view from the refugee camp.
9. What I appreciate about the structure is that it doesn’t pretend mediation is a linear process. The chapters circle back, sometimes contradict each other, and show how complicated this work really is. That’s honest. Peace processes aren’t neat. They don’t follow flowcharts. The book reflects that reality.
10. Let me now highlight six (6) major themes in the book which address the challenges of making peace in Africa:
a) African Solutions To African Problems
11. There’s this insistence on African ownership of peace processes. I’ve heard that phrase thrown around for forty years, usually by people who don’t mean it. But this book makes a serious argument. Look at what happened in the Gambia in 2017. Yahya Jammeh lost an election and refused to leave. ECOWAS, led by African leaders, got him out. No Western intervention, no UN Security Council paralysis. Regional powers handled it.
12. Same with Liberia. Multiple civil wars, hundreds of thousands dead, the state completely collapsed. The peace process that finally worked involved African mediators, African troops, and African regional organisations. Sure, the international community helped, but the leadership was African. That shift – from waiting for Washington, Paris, or London to tell us what to do to Africa taking the lead – is real. This book documents it.
13. Now, let me be clear. This isn’t about romanticising Africa or pretending that external actors don’t matter. They do. The UN matters. Bilateral donors matter. International NGOs matter. But the point is who’s in the driver’s seat. And increasingly, it’s Africans. That matters for legitimacy, sustainability, and dignity. The book makes that case convincingly.
b) Credibility is Everything
14. Mediator credibility. Several chapters hammer this point home, and they’re right. You can have all the peace agreements in the world, but if the parties don’t trust the mediator, you’re dead in the water. Abubakar’s credibility came from the 1999 transition, but also from how he operates. The chapters describe a man who doesn’t grandstand, doesn’t play favourites, and doesn’t leak to the press. He shows up, listens, and works the problem.
15. There’s a wonderful section on his mediation in Niger after the 2009 coup. He spent months shuttling between factions, building trust and finding common ground. Not glamorous work, but it led to a constitutional referendum and new elections. That’s the kind of patient, unglamorous persistence that actually works. The book captures it well.
16. I have seen mediators destroy their credibility in an afternoon by playing games, trying to look important for the cameras, and favouring one side because it suits their country’s interests. Abubakar seems to have avoided those traps. The chapters written by people who worked with him consistently emphasise his integrity, discretion, and patience. Those aren’t soft skills. In this work, they’re the difference between success and failure.
c) Women At The Table
17. Women’s participation in peace processes. I grew up in a generation when peace talks were all men, all the time. Women made the coffee. That was it. This book documents a real shift. Multiple chapters discuss the Mano River Women’s Peace Network, efforts to bring women into the Liberian peace talks, and UN Resolution 1325 and what it actually means on the ground.
18. And here’s what matters; they’re not talking about women as victims. They’re talking about women as mediators, negotiators, and power brokers. There’s a chapter describing how Liberian women literally blockaded the peace talks until the men stopped walking out every five minutes and actually negotiated. That’s agency. That’s power. And Abubakar, to his credit, made women’s participation a priority in his foundation’s work. The book gives him due recognition for that.
19. What struck me in these chapters is the practical wisdom. It’s not just about being fair or progressive, though those matter. It’s about recognising that women often have different stakes, networks, and leverage points. They can reach communities that male elites can’t. They can build coalitions that cross ethnic or religious lines. Excluding them from peace processes isn’t just wrong. It’s stupid. It weakens the process. The book makes this clear.
d) The Unofficial Channels That Actually Work
20. Track Two diplomacy. This is the behind-the-scenes work, the unofficial channels, and the conversations that take place away from the cameras. Several chapters explain how this works in Africa, and it’s fascinating. You’ve got elders’ councils, religious leaders, traditional rulers, and civil society groups; all these parallel tracks running alongside the official negotiations.
21. The genius is that when the official talks stall (and they always do), you’ve got these other channels keeping the conversation going. Someone can float a trial balloon without committing their government. Someone can apologise without losing face. It’s messy and informal, but that’s precisely why it works. The book does a good job of explaining this, using real examples from Gen. Abubakar’s work.
22. I remember one case; I think it was Liberia, though it could have been Sierra Leone. They blur together after a while. The official talks were completely stuck. The warlords weren’t budging. But behind the scenes, traditional chiefs were talking to each other, religious leaders were praying together, and women’s groups were organising. And slowly, slowly, the pressure built until the official negotiations could move again. That’s how it actually works. The book gets that.
e) Democracy Is Hard And Almost Always Untidy
23. The relationship between peace and democracy. Here’s where the book gets complicated, which is good, because reality is complicated. Several chapters point out that you can’t simply impose elections and call it peace. Look at what happened across Africa in the 1990s and 2000s. Elections without institutional foundations, the rule of law, or civic culture often made things worse, not better.
24. But the book also argues (and I agree) that sustainable peace requires legitimate governance. People need to feel their voices count and that the system isn’t rigged against them. The trick is sequencing, patience, and institution-building. Nigeria’s 1999 transition worked partly because Abubakar took the time to set up proper electoral systems, bring in international observers, and consult widely. Quick fixes don’t work. This book understands that.
25. There’s a chapter (I think by a Nigerian academic) that examines the tension between stability and democracy. Sometimes you need a strong hand to stop the killing before you can build democratic institutions. But sometimes strongmen use ‘stability’ as an excuse to entrench themselves forever. Walking that line, knowing when to push for democratic reforms and when to accept interim arrangements, requires judgement. The book explores those tensions honestly.
f) Ecowas And The Au: Growing Up Or Are They?
26. The evolution of regional organisations. I remember when ECOWAS was a joke, and the OAU was a dictators’ club that never met a sovereignty principle it wouldn’t hide behind. This book documents a real transformation. ECOWAS now has conflict-resolution mechanisms that actually work. The AU has a Peace and Security Council that sometimes acts. The progress is uneven, sure, but it’s real.
27. Abubakar’s work with these organisations (as a mediator and as a trusted elder statesman) helped build their credibility. Several chapters analyse specific interventions, showing what worked and what didn’t. That kind of honest assessment is valuable. We need more of it.
IV. WHAT COULD BE BETTER
28. No book is perfect. Let me be straight about what I think could be stronger here.
29. First, some chapters repeat themselves. With forty-five contributors, overlap is inevitable. Three chapters discuss the Nigerian transition in very similar ways. The editors could have been more ruthless about consolidation.
30. Second, there’s insufficient critical analysis of failures. Yes, Abubakar has had remarkable successes, but peace processes fail all the time. I would have liked more chapters that ask hard questions: When did mediation not work? Why? What were the mistakes? Festschrifts tend towards hagiography. This one is better than most, but it could still push harder.
31. Third, the book is light on the economics of conflict. You can mediate all you want, but if the economic incentives favour continued fighting, you’re not going to achieve sustainable peace. A few chapters touch on this, including resource conflicts, youth unemployment, and economic marginalisation. But I wanted more depth on the economic dimensions.
32. Fourth, I wish there were more on what happens after the peace agreement is signed. Implementation is where most peace deals die. The book focuses heavily on the mediation process itself, which makes sense given Abubakar’s role. But the follow-through matters just as much.
33. Lastly, and this is a small point, the book could use more maps and timelines. When you’re discussing complex conflicts with multiple factions and years of fighting, visual aids help. Some chapters reference events and actors that would be clearer with a simple chart or map.
V. WHY THIS BOOK MATTERS RIGHT NOW
34. Here is the thing: Africa is in the middle of a brutal wave of coups. Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon, and Sudan are tearing themselves apart. Democratic backsliding across the continent. The optimism of the early 2000s feels like a long time ago.
35. In that context, this book is important. It documents what’s possible when you have committed leadership, when regional organisations step up, and when mediators build real trust. It shows that African solutions can work. Not theory – actual practice and actual results.
36. The book also serves as a training manual for the next generation. Young people entering conflict resolution, diplomacy and peacebuilding need to learn from those who’ve done it. This collection gives them real case studies, real lessons, and real failures and successes to study.
37. And honestly, it is a reminder that individuals matter. Systems matter, institutions matter, economic structures matter. But sometimes one person making the right choice at the right moment can change everything. Gen. Abubakar’s decision in 1999 to honour his promise and to work for peace across Africa for the next two decades mattered. This book documents why.
38. The timing of this publication is also significant. We’re watching what’s happening in Sudan right now, including the horrific violence and the complete collapse of the state. We’re watching Ethiopia struggle to hold together. We’re watching the Sahel burn. In that context, having a documented record of what successful mediation looks like, what it requires, and how it can work is not academic. It’s urgent and practical.
VI. CONCLUSION
39. Let me close by saying something directly to General Abubakar who made this book possible. Your 1999 decision to honour democracy and step aside peacefully changed Nigeria’s trajectory. Your subsequent two decades of patient, unglamorous mediation across Africa have saved lives and built peace. This book is a fitting tribute to that work, but more than that, it’s a resource that will help others follow your example. That’s a legacy that lasts.
40. I have read many books on peace over my sixty years of this work. Most of them gather dust on shelves. This one would not. It is too useful, too grounded in reality, and too honest about what works and what doesn’t. Anyone serious about understanding peace-making in Africa needs to read it.
41. The continent faces enormous challenges. The old post-independence generation is passing. The new generation is stepping up, but they’re stepping into a world of climate change, youth bulges, resource scarcity, and great power competition unfolding on African soil. They need wisdom. They need examples. They need to know that peace is possible, even when it seems impossible.
42. This book provides that. It’s a gift to the field, a serious work of documentation and analysis, and a tribute to one man’s extraordinary commitment to peace. We’re fortunate to have it.
43. Thank you all for your kind attention.
* Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, CFR, is a distinguished academic, diplomat, and former minister, who served as Chief of Staff to the President of Nigeria from 2020 to 2023
