The former Vice-President of Liberia, Joseph Boakai, has called on African leaders to design development programmes that will serve sections of the populations that lack government’s presence and are untouched by public services.
Boakai, while speaking on the ‘Challenges of Growth and Sustainable Development in Africa’ at the maiden edition of International Pan-African Conference hosted in Nigeria by Chrisland University at Abeokuta in Ogun state, described Africa’s woes as a complex situation that requires bold and holistic socio-economic and political solutions.
According to him, failure to invest in the youths, bad governance and poor infrastructure among others can leave many countries in chaos and upheavals in the face of man-made disasters.
Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, the former Minister of Education in her keynote address at the event lamented the failure of African nations in all of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) programmes, describing African leaders as possibly comfortable with mediocrity.
While she lamented that Africa is not doing well, she said, “By every standard of measurement, we leave our people miserable in poverty and have a situation whereby millions of graduates enter the labour market without decent work to do. African leaders must put an end to policies that are responsible for backwardness of the people,” she said.
According to her, formulation of policies with empirical evidence is capable of taking the continent out of the woods in less than three decades.
She emphasized that the evidenced-based policies taken in the telecommunications industry by the country was responsible for the widespread gains being enjoyed by majority of Nigerians.
The Chairman, Board of Trustees, Chrisland University, Chief (Dr.) Winifred Awosika, assured that the institution will not relent in producing quality graduates that will make Nigeria proud.
