Nigeria Not to Dominate West African Sub-region: PresidentNigeria will continue to play a leading role in the integration of the West African sub-region and will not overwhelm and dominate other nations in the region, President Olusegun Obasanjo said on Thursday.Speaking to a group of visiting guests in the capital Abuja, Obasanjo said that a democratic and prosperous Nigeria would have positive ramifications for the entire West African sub-region, any fear of Nigeria's domination were unfounded. Obasanjo reiterated his administration's resolve not to overwhelm and dominate a union of West African states, saying Nigeria has no need to suck others in and overwhelm them. He therefore urged countries within the sub-region "not to play into the hands of external interests, who wished to divide them or those in their midst, who are too myopic to appreciate the imperatives of economic and political integration". "A united West Africa will be more prosperous than Nigeria by itself," the president asserted. As Africa's most populous nation and a leading role-player in the sub-region, Nigeria has been campaigning for the economic and political integration within the 16-member Economic Community of West African States. Observers said that the eagerness of Obasanjo's administration to push forward the regional integration and the bad image of Nigeria's past military regime's readiness to use military forces to intervene the regional conflicts have caused uneasiness of some small nations in the region. |
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