Setting Fresh Agenda In Fight Against Poverty

 By Stanley Achonu

The seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, made one of the most profound statements concerning humanity when he said, “Extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere.”

Like Annan, world leaders and public officeholders are increasingly aware of the devastating impact of extreme poverty on society and its potency to strip individuals of their dignity and push them toward hunger and deprivation. This understanding has birthed several global alleviation programmes to combat poverty and mitigate its impact.

Our Women Have Been Caged In 'The Other Room' Again!

By Banji Ojewale

There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women—Kofi Annan (1938-2018) former United Nations Secretary-General.

Nigeria is not picking durable lessons from events around her, from countries whose equal-gender institutions are speeding them to achievement. We (or is it our leaders?) appear to be running with others in this global village in the race against time, yet we are rooted to the same spot, when other nations in the competition have moved on, moved on to destinations where we can’t even sight their tail lights, after squinting into the distance. 

One of the big factors that have winged their traction for meteoric move is the preponderant or balanced presence of their women in government at the top, not on the periphery of political office, government and bureaucracy. They invest enormously in the fair sex to enlist them for work for the state and its people, the same way they press the male into national assignment, gender no stumbling block. Their women can conquer the peak to become the head of government and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Waiting For Atiku’s Women

By Banji Ojewale

There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women

—Kofi Annan (1938-2018), former UN Secretary-General.

I am among millions of Nigerians who can’t wait for the day God will bless our dear country with a visionary and radical female president, along with a great host of the fairer sex of kindred spirit governing the states and heading the MDAs. The tragedy of an effete economy, social stagnation and political paralysis that we have lived with over the years is the consequence of the neglect of this formidable section of society by our leaders. 

*Atiku  Abubakar 

Developing society and its constituents boils down to making use of all the functional human capital at your disposal. The moment you succumb to so-called imperatives of culture, false religion or superstition, and you drop the women, youth and the working class from your strides, you begin to enter a reverse march. That’s been Nigeria’s misogynist history, always drawing us into the bottomless depths of backwardness. 

Jammeh’s Defiance, ECOWAS Mistake And Buhari’s Bad Example

By Jude Ndukwe

As it is now, The Gambia is under emergency rule as declared by its president of 22 years, Yahya Jammeh. The emergency rule has become necessary in the estimation of Jammeh, following his decision to challenge the outcome of the country’s December 1, 2016 election in which Adama Barrow was declared winner.

 

*Gambian President Yahya Jammeh receives
President Muhammadu Buhari in Banjul on
 December 13, 2016

The impasse has been largely fuelled by the haste with which the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has not only intervened but also interfered in what should, at this stage, be a purely internal matter of a sovereign nation. Jammeh’s decision to challenge the outcome of the election result is very well within his constitutional rights.

By this, the man who is said to have ruled his country with an iron fist, is still within his constitutional rights to test the validity of the election result in the law court. Obviously, it is this right that the ECOWAS nations and indeed a good part of the world has misinterpreted to mean that Jammeh has refused to step down, and this is part of what has heightened the impasse. Just like in Nigeria, the declaration of results by the electoral body does not mark the end of an electoral process in The Gambia. The political actors are still constitutionally permitted to challenge such results in the law court.

Such electoral matters can only be said to have been fully dispensed with after the highest court constitutionally empowered to deal with such matters have done so. ECOWAS will be making a grave mistake if they send in troops to The Gambia at this stage. What the regional body should be concerned with now is to send in fearless and impartial judges to that country from Nigeria as requested to dispense with the matter speedily and judiciously.

It is only after the country’s highest courts have affirmed Barrow as winner and Jammeh refuse to step down and handover to Barrow that a military action would be justified.

Another mistake ECOWAS made was their choice of delegation as led by President Muhammadu Buhari to The Gambia as emissaries of peace and democracy to persuade Jammeh to hand over power peacefully and as scheduled. Although Jammeh had earlier accepted defeat and promised to leave the stage on the set date of January 19, 2017, he immediately did an about-turn the moment Barrow made the hasty and politically disingenuous statement of probing Jammeh’s administration.

Jammeh, who from his earlier posture, wanted to play the Goodluck Jonathan card of handing over power to the opposition after an election must have quickly remembered the Nigerian situation where persecution, injustice, oppression, deprivation and gross abuse of the rights of officials of the immediate past administration in particular and the citizens in general have been the order of the day, and recanted his earlier stance immediately.

The appointment of Buhari as leader of ECOWAS delegation to The Gambia is a monumental error. How can a man with no democratic credentials lead a mission of democracy? How can a man who hardly obeys court orders as in the case of Sheikh El Zakzaky, Nnamdi Kanu et al be the one appointed to mediate in a constitutional process? Not even the orders of the same ECOWAS court on Sambo Dasuki has been obeyed by Buhari months after they were given, yet, it is the same man ECOWAS gave the enviable responsibility to convince Jammeh about the need to leave the stage a democrat!

Buhari should not have been on that delegation not to talk of leading it. With the continued denial of campaign promises and policy somersaults, no leader would take Buhari’s word for whatever it is worth. With the rascally behaviour of some of our security agencies under Buhari’s watch leading to many innocent citizens being killed just for exercising their rights to assemble and protest, among others, in Jammeh’s mind, Buhari’s discussion with him might just seem like a dictator talking to a dictator about the need for a peaceful transition.

In fact, during those dialogues with Buhari, Jammeh might just be saying in his mind, “with your antecedents and current style of leadership, how am I sure that you would hand over power to your opponent if you were defeated in 2019?”

No doubt, Buhari is not the ideal example of a democratic leader. Such a leader like him needs the intervention of proven democrats to guide him on the inalienable ingredients of democracy. So for The Gambia to pass through this phase peacefully and speedily, ECOWAS should facilitate the immediate transfer of judges from Nigeria to that country as requested and allow all parties exhaust all their constitutional rights and provisions made available to them.

While that is going on, democrats with proven track record of not being power-drunk and who also have themselves handed power over to members of the opposition including well respected figures like Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan, Ghana’s John Mahama, Kofi Annan, Emeka Anyaoku etc should have been in the delegation to the exclusion of the likes of our own Buhari.

 It is only after the courts might have ruled against him and such entreaties have failed that a military action becomes desirable. For now, let the delegation be reshuffled and let The Gambia run the full course of its own constitutional provisions. That way we do not attempt to right a wrong with another wrong.

*Jude Ndukwe is a commentator on public issues 

Lightening Africa

By Said Adejumobi  

The metaphor for describing Africa as a “dark continent” has varied in time and space. In the 1970s to 1990s, Africa’s relative underdevelopment with high levels of poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, disease, etc was used by the Afro-pessimists like Joseph Konrad to qualify Africa as the “heart of darkness.” However, with the Africa ‘rising’ story, the energy crisis, precisely the provision of electricity, is now used to qualify the continent as a “dark continent.”  When an aerial picture of Africa is taken at night via the satellite, the image that suffices is undoubtedly one of a continent in utter darkness, with little twinkles of light, far in between.

The facts are daunting and the storyline is very bad. Over 60 per cent of the population of the continent estimated at about 612 million people,  do not have access to  basic energy. Sub-Saharan Africa excluding South Africa generates less electricity than Spain. The energy used in the city of New York is up to, if not more than, what the entire Sub-Saharan Africa consumes. Yet, electricity is the lifewire of a modern economy and society, without which human potentials, and economic development will be severely impaired. Firms cannot operate optimally,  jobs cannot be created, the informal sector cannot grow, the learning environment for our children will be harsh and inhospitable, and households will grumble all the time. That is the fate of Africa today. The promise of industrialisation and economic transformation will be far fetched for the continent if the energy infrastructure is not provided in Africa.

The energy challenge is now a major policy priority for the continent and the World Goal number seven (7) of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to achieve affordable and clean energy. The Progress Panel headed by former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan made energy the focus of its 2016 report entitled: Power, People and Planet, while the African Development Bank (AfDB) made it the subject of its annual board meetings which took place recently in Lusaka, Zambia from from May 23-27, 2016 on the theme: Energy and Climate Change.

Akinwumi Adesina, the new president of the AfDB, decked in a slim-fit suit and his trade mark bow-tie, spoke brilliantly on why the continent must be lighted up, and quickly too, and why the fate of our young men and women fleeing the continent, should not be in the Mediterranean Sea, but in economic prosperity at home. Energy is key to creating jobs and opportunities for them, at home. As Adesina delivered his message to the audience with passion, commitment, and conviction, the urgency of the matter no doubt dawned on everyone present. The AfDB used the platform to launch its new initiative on the ‘New Deal on Energy in Africa’ through which it hopes to support African countries to overcome the energy challenge with billions of dollars in investments.

There are areas of good consensus amongst key stakeholders on what needs to be done to get Africa lighted up. African governments can no longer do it alone; public-private sector partnership is central in changing the ball game on energy in Africa. Massive investments and strategic planing are required in the sector which hitherto was not the case except for political rhetorics and high level of corruption. And finally, is that the reform of the energy sector is imperative if the goal of lighting up Africa is ever to be achieved.