Obasanjo was speaking at a high-level meeting of the African Unionâ€"East African Communityâ€"Southern African Development Community (AUâ€"EACâ€"SADC) Panel of Facilitators on the eastern DRC peace process, held at State House in Entebbe and hosted by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday.
'The issue concerns management or mismanagement of diversity within the DRC and the relationship of the DRC with its neighbours,' Obasanjo said, noting that the same fundamental challenges that triggered UN peacekeeping intervention in 1960 persist today. He said that while many actors claim to understand the crisis, differing diagnoses have slowed efforts to resolve it.
'Once you diagnose your disease properly, it is half solved,' he said, adding that peace can only be achieved if all stakeholders agree on the nature of the problem and apply the right solutions.
Obasanjo stressed that the African Union must remain at the centre of the peace process, even as international partners such as the United States, Qatar and France express interest in supporting stability in the region. He cautioned, however, that externally driven solutions risk failing to address local realities.
'A solution imported from outside Africa may not properly deal with the situation that we have in our hands,' he said, pointing out that the conflict involves multiple armed groups beyond the M23 and reflects long-standing, unresolved grievances.
President Museveni, in his remarks, said the conflict in eastern Congo is well understood in the region and should not have taken decades to resolve. He noted that Uganda hosts about 500,000 Congolese refugees, part of an estimated two million refugees living in the country.
'We know the problem so well,' Museveni said, citing strong ethnic and cultural ties between communities across borders in Uganda, South Sudan and the DRC.
'It is really a shame that it should take so long because it is easy to solve," he remarked.
Museveni noted that while Congo once faced secessionist threats, the current crisis is driven by grievances rather than attempts to break up the country. He said this presented an opportunity for authorities in Kinshasa to address long-standing complaints and restore stability.
Obasanjo described Museveni as being in a unique position to contribute to the peace effort, citing his long involvement in regional affairs and the absence of strong opposition to his role among the stakeholders consulted, including leaders in Rwanda and Burundi, as well as representatives of the AFC/M23 rebel alliance.
Also present at the meeting was Faure Gnassingbé, President of the Council of Togo and the African Union's lead mediator on the eastern DRC peace process. Obasanjo is part of a panel of experts appointed by the AU that includes former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, former Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde, former Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi and former Central African Republic President Catherine Samba-Panza.
The panel was established in March 2025 following the merger of the Nairobi and Luanda peace processes into a unified framework aimed at harmonising regional and continental efforts to resolve the crisis. Its mandate includes guiding negotiations between the Congolese government and armed groups, including the M23, and overseeing the implementation of agreed measures such as the neutralisation of the FDLR militia.
Analysts say the root causes of the conflict include historical ethnic grievances, failed political settlements and persistent discrimination against some communities, particularly Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese whose citizenship has often been questioned. The AFC/M23 movement says it is fighting to defend the rights of these marginalised groups.
Obasanjo said African leaders involved in the process had accepted responsibility for finding a durable solution.
'We will seek and look for an African solution to our African problem,' he said.
Wycliffe Nyamasege
Source : https://en.igihe.com/politics-48/article/obasanjo-pushes-root-cause-approach-to-ending-drc-violence
