Abuja, Feb. 15, - African leaders
must and should take immediate and unrelenting steps to make the Continent a
land of opportunity for its teeming youth, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
has said.
Noting that with Africa having
the largest youth workforce, a resource which could drive the Continent's
development faster than imagined, he said, it was imperative that policies are
initiated by governments to create the right condition for the youth to
flourish rather than seek better lives elsewhere.
“Our youth who bear the brunt of
the suffering now resort to desperate measures to get out,” he said on
Thursday, when he delivered the keynote address at an event on transformative
governance in Africa, in Abuja, Nigeria,
The lecture was organised by the
Kukah Centre, a Nigerian-based policy research institute.
President Akufo-Addo was saddened
that African youths “brave the Sahara desert on foot, and those who survive the
ravages of the desert, risk being sold in slave markets in Libya, or risk
journeys across the Mediterranean sea on rickety boats, all in the forlorn hope
of a better life in Europe, in countries and amongst people where they are
obviously not welcome.”
“We must provide education,
education and education. It means our young people must acquire the skills that
run modern economies… When they are skilled, they would not have to risk
drowning in the Mediterranean sea, they would be head hunted and treated with
dignity.”
The President said Africa had
more than enough resource to pay for educating and training young people on the
continent, and make them ready to face the world of the 21st century.
He told the gathering that the
purpose for the launch of the Free SHS policy in Ghana, in September 2017, was
to ensure that all Ghanaian children attain a minimum of Senior High School
education, adding that, it is the only way we can create an educated workforce
to accelerate the process of development.
“I hesitate to prescribe policy
initiatives for other countries, but, on the matter of education, I have no
hesitation whatsoever in recommending that all African countries adopt the
policy of free compulsory education from kindergarten to senior high school.
"This is one of the most
important things we have to do, if we are to make the transformation from our
current state of poverty to prosperity,” President Akufo-Addo noted.
President Akufo-Addo reiterated
that Africa should look to no one to sort out its problems, except Africans
themselves.
“We must match those who come to
do business with us, in all the skills they possess. We must have our own set
of bright and sharp lawyers, our own set of bright and sharp accountants, to
keep us abreast with the sharp and bright lawyers and accountants that our
trade partners have,” he said.
“In much the same way, we need to
have our own bright and sharp technologists to keep us abreast with our
competitors.”
The President further reiterated
that Africa ought to take a deep look at the colonial structures of her
economies, which have, over the years, been dependent on the production and
export of raw materials.
“The era of Africa’s
industrialisation has dawned, so that we can also trade in the world economy,
not on the basis of exports of raw materials, but on the basis of things we
make,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo stressed the
need for Africa to integrate speedily for Continental Free Trade to become a
reality.
He said a working common
continental market should be a very fundamental objective of all peoples and
governments on the continent.
"The decision the AU is
about to take in Kigali, capital of Rwanda, on 21st March, at its Extraordinary
Summit, for Member States to sign and launch the treaty for the establishment
of the Continental Free Trade Area is one of the most important decisions the
AU will ever take. It is vital that the treaty works, and that the Continental
Free Trade Area becomes an immediate reality,” he said.
GNA
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