![O](/sites/g/files/omnuum9081/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2026-11/Obasanjo%20Finger.jpeg?h=5f882bdc&itok=GHjX1Qas) # From the Director's Desk: H.E. Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of the Republic of Nigeria November 05, 2026 Dear all, *From the Director’s Desk is an occasional series where I will share a few high-impact themes or observations from recent CAS events. Harvard is a busy place and we have a global audience. There are thus many reasons people cannot always be in the room for a convening. My goal, nonetheless, is to ensure the lessons shared at Harvard travel beyond those who can join us in person. You can listen to the full conversation with Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of the Republic of Nigeria, on the* [*IOP Youtube page (linked in our home page)*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY9yVYC8uX0) In our conversation at the IOP Forum on Tuesday night, I was struck by President Obasanjo's unparalleled catalogue of stories. Opening the event on “Peacekeeping in Africa and Beyond”, he began by recollecting his arrival in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), Congo, on October 5, 1960, where he had been deployed as a UN peacekeeper and soldier from newly independent Nigeria. Four days after our conversation at Harvard, on Saturday, October 24, he would be arriving in Lomé, Togo, to mediate peace talks between DR Congo and Rwanda, where protracted conflict in Eastern Congo has escalated into a governance and security crisis in Goma that is threatening Congo's cohesion as a single sovereign state. This marked for President Obasanjo 66 years at the frontlines - or doorstep - of conflict and peacemaking in Congo and the broader region. I asked how he’s seen African conflict trends change in that time; is it more of the same, or something fundamentally different? He said, Africa is a reflection of the global picture. “We are in good company - or bad company” depending on what is happening with peace and security elsewhere around the world. ![O](/sites/g/files/omnuum9081/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2026-11/Obasanjo%20Serious.jpeg?itok=lm6AZcZk) Pressed for what this means for peacemaking and the state of African solutions for African problems, he was direct: "conflicts and wars should not be left to Africans alone.” This view reflects what I might describe as his global theory of power that is decidedly realist in assessing sources of leverage and material advantage. Obasanjo is a pragmatist before he is an idealist. “We talk of African solutions to African problems, not that we don’t need help from our friends,” he said. This might ruffle the feathers of people who tend to view international intervention in African conflicts as neocolonial meddling, or doing more harm than good. However, for Obasanjo, he elaborated that international friendship should be nested in the principle of subsidiarity, which is a foundational principle of the African Union and specifically its African Peace and Security Architecture (link). He described it to the audience as the practice of using the best tool for a particular problem. Bilateral conflicts should be resolved bilaterally, regional conflicts should be resolved at the regional level, and that larger-scale multilateral solutions should be implemented where the subsidiary body is either partial or insufficient. He was not just articulating principles that lack follow-through in practice, because he offered a pointed counter-example of when subsidiarity had not been respected: Libya. Obasanjo described the US intervention as not “allowing Africa to handle it” and in turn, creating a much messier and more volatile security and governance situation that African actors continue to try to manage across the Sahel. What lessons has he learned and what might he do differently in Ethiopia and DRC, given the dangerous turn those countries have taken? When we spoke, the Ethiopian government had recently dislodged the TPLF from Tigray, and DRC fractured more dramatically in the Kivus, as former president Joseph Kabila emerged as the official leaders of rebel group M23. President Obasanjo said he would not change anything. He wanted students and aspiring peace builders to understand two things that he felt conditioned outcomes in the Pretoria Agreement and ongoing talks for DRC. First, peacemaking is between the parties, not the mediator, he said. And second, people need to understand the underlying factors driving a conflict. These, he illustrated through the competing claims of historical wrongdoing in the war in Tigray, and the demographic composition that Obasanjo argued condition success. “Good days will come back to Africa,” he said, but the present moment lacks the sustained and visionary leadership he sees as essential for driving the ambitious vision of the AfCFTA and the demands of contemporary peacemaking. ![O](/sites/g/files/omnuum9081/files/2026-11/Obasanjo%20Speech.jpeg) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)