Nigeria's new civilian President, Mr Olusegun Obasanjo, called on Africa yesterday to shed its reputation as a continent at war with itself and urged fellow leaders at the Organisation of African Unity summit to make 2000 the year of peace.
Mr Obasanjo said the challenge of the millennium was to root out the problems blocking the economic development of the world's poorest continent.
"I wish to propose that we agree to declare next year as the year of peace and security in Africa," he told the opening session of the summit in Algeria. He listed war, population growth, desertification, drought, disease, illiteracy and the continent's $350 billion foreign debt as the main obstacles to growth.
The UN Secretary-General, Dr Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian, welcomed emerging peace agreements in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Algeria.
"The overall picture in Africa today is nowhere near as gloomy as it seems to those elsewhere," he said.
African leaders turned out in force for the summit.