Former Minister of Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili, has expressed worry over the continent’s low Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Ezekwesili, who spoke at the launch of Big Ideas Platform by the School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG), tasked African leaders to invest more in youths, women and technology in order to improve their GDP.
According to her, with such enormous resources and youthful population, there is no excuse for many Africans to be poor.
She said: “I have often said that there are three game changers for our country and those three game changes have been in great exhibition today.
“Number one big change of our continent is the young people. Africa’s mean age, or median age is about 18.6 years compared to global average of more than 40 years.
“What that means is that this is the youngest continent. There is so much locked up in the young people. Africa’s young people are already showing the world that they can act globally, that they can compete globally.
“And that despite some of the challenges that hold them back due to poor governance, if they find their feet, they can even surpass the ideas that others put on the table. So, Africa’s young people have economically proven to be game changers.
“Another thing is African women. That is very clear. What data shows us is that Africa can actually increase its GDP by $360 billion by 2025. We just need to include our women in the developing process, and Africa stands a chance of such increase in its GDP, considering that the continent’s GDP is still a paltry $2.3 trillion. It means that there’s so much that is held up in gender disparity.
“The third factor is technology. Technology has been Africa’s most insignificant revolution. We did not participate in the agrarian revolution; we were not part of the industrial revolution.
“We were not really that much part of the early days of the knowledge revolution, but the ICT revolution has been our first participation and not even as a major producer of ideas of it, but just a consumer, we already began to learn how to participate in producing innovations within it.
“So, even if you are the most pessimistic person, you have absolutely no business leaving today’s programme without boost of optimism, that our young people and women joined with the capacity that technology offers, we will definitely be the ones that will determine the 21st century.”
In his remarks, National Vice Chairman (North West) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, said most of the challenges bedeviling Nigeria were because of some political parties that had not lived up to expectations.
Lukman noted that since 1999, Nigeria has not been lucky to have a political party that is clearly functional and running its affairs democratically to deliver dividends of democracy to the people.
He noted that rather than investing in political parties, Nigerians, especially politicians, only see parties as means to produce candidates for elections.
“Almost as a generation, we have focused more at least since 1999, in candidates for elections, and thinking that the most important thing in politics is to produce candidates while imagining that once that is addressed, we will likely produce good leaders and that has in turn produced a lot of frustration. The big missing element is that over time we have failed to invest in our political parties.
“As it is today, we don’t have any one party that is clearly functional, running its affairs democratically, in a way that citizens can access it and when they become members, they can explore the possibility of emerging as candidate,” Lukman said.
Executive Director of Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ), Hansatu Adegbite, said women should be part of decision-making in the country.
This is even as she lamented that the cost of inequality is extremely high, noting that Nigeria has been paying the cost for the longest time.
