As part of measures to improve the socio-political and economic fortune of Africans, the Vice President Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), African Group, Senator Kabiru Ibrahim Gaya has advocated the effective implementation of Goal One (1) and Ten (10) of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Senator whose Kano South Senatorial District in the National Assembly is the largest constituency in Nigeria said this Thursday in Abuja while departing for the 138th IPU Assembly and Related Meetings that will be taking place in Geneva Switzerland from 24 to 28 March 2018.
He said that such measure is a panacea to the problems of Irregular Migrations and Refugees in Africa.
“If the Goal One (1) and Ten (10) of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable development of the United Nations is implemented by African countries, it will really help in addressing the problems of irregular migration and refugees facing the continent,” Gaya said.
According to him, this call has become pertinent, against the background of the statistics released in 2017, by the UN, which indicated that there are estimated 258 million International migrants and IDPs and that the total number of International Migrant and IDPs has grown by 49 percent since 2000.
Africa, the report says, accounts for 34 million or 14 percent) of the population and most of them followed through wrong and dangerous routes by embarking on an irregular migration to get to their various destinations by fleeing poverty and conflict at home like the insurgency in the North Eastern part of Nigeria.
Gaya said, “If the problem of poverty is being addressed which is Goal One (1) and inequalities is reduced drastically as contained in Goal Ten (10) of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by various stakeholders on the Continent the problem of irregular migrants IDPs and refugees will become a thing of the past.”