By Chidimma C. Okeke
The founder of Okali Seminal Ideas Foundation for Africa (OSIFA) ,Agwu Ukiwe Okali has said intellectual discourse through debate of national issues can help to reduce issues of disputes in elections in African countries.
Okali who stated this in Abuja in a briefing to announce the unveiling of OSIFA Great Debate Series with the watchword “Public Enlightenment through Intellectual Discourse” coming up on Wednesday, said there has never been any election that took place in Africa that is never disputed.
He said Africans are drifting away and loosing vital element of democratic movement by not debating on important national issues and trashing it out, saying, debating on national issues may help create informed knowledge among Africans and help to address so many issues.
The debate according to him is an intellectual exercise of generating, articulating and interrogating ideas of which the results will be useful to the democratic governance of African countries and the working of the foundation.
While noting that Africans despite having great ideas are not being mentioned in intellectual contributions, he said that is solely because they have not made themselves heard.
Africans have beautiful ideas that need to be articulated, he said.
OSIFA, according to him will actively propagate and foster a “culture of Ideas” within the African societies and providing a global platform for the articulation of such Africa generated ideas.
The foundation is proposing a topic, “That Western Model Of Democracy has Failed in Africa,” to be debated by six panelists.
The panelists are Prof Anya O.Anya, Rt Hon Haruna Manu, Dr Lanre Adebayo, Prof Jumai Audi, Amb Gregory Okon and Queen Ehirim.
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