AU Delegation Urges Nigeria to Motivate Other African Countries on Governance

Michael Olugbode and Kasim Sumaina in Abuja

A delegation from the Africa Union has urged Nigeria to live up to the ‘Big Brother’ status on the continent by motivating other African countries in governance.

The AU delegates on Country Review Mission (CRM), on the second peer review process in Abuja yesterday said Nigeria needs to serve as motivator to other African countries in governance as well as other good virtues.

The Lead Panelist on AU CRM, Prof. Janneh Abdoulie, made the call at a town hall meeting in Abuja, which was organised by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) to engage state and non-actors on the review process.

According to him, the review mission will address the four thematic areas of democracy/political governance; economic; social development, and corporate governance.

Abdoulie noted that it is an important process of the APRM that would 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.

He said they chose to be in Nigeria in order to further assess the reports approved by President Muhammadu Buhari, adding that the reports would serve as a reference record for others.

In her contributions, Prof. Christiana Adeyeye, the director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), applauded the Nigeria’s APRM secretariat for its review process, which she said would assist in bringing more development in the country.

While fielding questions on NAFDAC contributions, Adeyeye said the agency was looking at encouraging the local contents for the creation of jobs in Nigeria, to also divert the country from over dependent on foreign goods.

Also, the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, said the corps was exploiting new mechanism to boost its services to reduce traffic crisis and fatality on the Nigeria 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 operation on roads.

He said: “We are trying to apply the global best practices to see how we can reduce number of casualties on the highways, and we are equally cooperating with the ECOWAS region to see that we maintain uniformity and similarity.”