The African Union (AU) has called on African countries scheduled to hold elections during the first half of 2023 to ensure peaceful and inclusive elections toward silencing the guns in Africa.The call was made by the AU’s Peace and Security Council in a statement issued on Friday that followed its recent meeting that dwelt upon elections that were conducted in Africa from July to December 2022 and an outlook for 2023.

The Council welcomed the “relentless efforts” being deployed by AU member states scheduled to organize elections during the first half of 2023, namely Benin, Djibouti, Nigeria, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, an AU statement read.

It encouraged the countries to sustain their effort in order to ensure that their planned elections are peaceful, inclusive, transparent, democratic and credible towards realizing continental aspiration in silencing the guns in Africa.

It underscored the need to further strengthen the institutional capacity of judicial systems across the continent toward effectively addressing all electoral disputes; and promote platforms for dialogue, consensus building and amicable settlement of election-related disputes among political actors.

The Council further called on all AU member states to continue to redouble their efforts in mobilizing domestic financial resources for their election processes with a view to insulating the elections from unintended consequences of depending on external sources of election financing.