AU delegation wants Nigeria to serve as Africa’s motivator
An AU Country Review Mission (CRM) on the second Peer Review process has urged Nigeria to serve as motivator in governance to other African countries.
Prof. Janneh Abdoulie, the Lead Panelist on AU CRM, made the call on Monday, in Abuja, at a town hall meeting, organised by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), to engage Non State actors in the review process.
Reports said that the CRM team arrived in Nigeria to further review the country’s self-assessment record on activities of the APRM, following the approval of the reports by President Muhammadu Buhari for validation.
The review mission visits the country under review and conducts broad-based consultations with government, parliamentarians, and representatives of civil society organisations, the media and the private sector to elicit their views.
Addressing the participants, Abdoulie said it was a welcome idea for them to be in the country to further assess the reports approved by President Buhari, explaining that the reports would serve as a reference record for others.
He said the review mission would address the four thematic areas of democracy/political governance, economic, social development, corporate governance.
“It is an important process of the APRM that will make Nigeria a mirror in Africa, being the first country to carry out the second review process after four years’ period given by the AU before another review.
In her contributions, Prof. Christiana Adeyeye, Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), applauded Nigeria’s APRM Secretariat for its review process to bring more development to the country.
While answering questions on NAFDAC’s contributions, Adeyeye said the agency was looking at encouraging local content for jobs creation in Nigeria, and to also reduce over dependence on foreign goods.
“ Whether medicine or drugs, clothing, we are over dependent on foreign goods, and COVID-19 pandemic has opened the eyes of everybody, especially in the health sector, ” she said.
Also, Mr Boboye Oyeyemi, Corps Marshal, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), said the corps was exploring new mechanisms to boost its services, reduce traffic incidents and fatalities on Nigerian roads.
Represented by Mr Victor Nwokolo, Deputy Corps Marshal, Policy Research/Solution, Oyeyemi said the corps’ major concern was to meet the global best practices in its mode of operations on roads.
“We are trying to apply the global best practices to see how we can reduce the number of casualties on the highway, we are equally cooperating with the ECOWAS region to see that we maintain uniformity and similarity, ” he said.
