Tourism, Learning and Saving the Port Harcourt Zoo

Jan27

A couple of years ago, precisely 2003, I started the Save Port Harcourt Zoo Campaign, with the aim of raising awareness on the need to save the local zoo from collapse as a result of  ’inadequate care and nutrition for the animals.’ The goal was to ‘to set up a Zoo Renewal Fund’ in addition to a student volunteer programme at the zoo.

The main justifications were: the Zoo was an important venue for learning and recreation, not many such spaces were available in the city for the later at the time, and with the zoo in good shape, our kids could at the very least see the animals about which they are thought in class without needing to travel out of the city. The thinking then was to eventually expand the project to include broader issues like: conservation, wild life education and zoo management. At the time, I received one correspondence from an individual at the Nigerian LNG  who suggested the company could sell scraps to support the Zoo. A couple of years later, the project also generated some discussion on the internet, with calls for and commitments to support.

So when I saw this article [Enchanted by Port Harcourt's Wildlife Park, Sept. 2011] which suggests there might have been some improvements at the Zoo, I was so delighted. However, this other article [Nigeria-Wildlife: Where have all the animals gone?, Nov. 2011] published two months later suggests differently. Haven not been to the Zoo in several years, I am unable to verify or refute the content of these articles, but it will be a very big relief if the Zoo is indeed getting some attention.

Whenever I have an opportunity, I will visit the Zoo, and share my thoughts on its state and the state of the animals. Whatever the case, it is certain that the Zoo will require better funding from the government and support from the private sector to undertake many tasks, including simple ones like better shelter for the animals and setting up a website. I hope that going forward some support can be mobilised in this regard, and perhaps the ‘Zoo renewal fund’ can finally be established.

On NDDC, Fuel subsidy and National Honours

Nov24

I hope that the sacking of NDDC’s previous board does not mark the end of investigations on alleged corruption charges levelled against some of its members. Beyond this, I wonder whether anyone has found the current federal government institutional framework for Niger Delta development comprising: NDDC, Amnesty office and the ministry of Niger Delta Affairs as needing a review, expensive and difficult to justify. Do we really need all three of them? How much does it cost to manage the bureaucracy and administration of these different bodies? How accountable are they to the people of the Niger Delta? NDDC has the regional master plan to guide its work, what guides the Ministry, when does the functions of the Amnesty office come to an end? How do these agencies cooperate with each other and with states? I hope the new board of the NDDC will get to work immediately and implement programmes that will improve the quality of the life of ordinary people in the region. I suppose that’s why it was set up in the first place.

On the fuel subsidy mêlée, I think the federal government should fix the refineries, build new ones and develop local refining capability. Only after this has been accomplished should any discussion about removing subsidies be brought to the table. By that time, we should be talking about other facets of the nation’s development where we could channel the ‘new savings’ from the no-more-necessary ‘subsidy fund’ just like we did with the so-called ‘debt relief savings.’ For now, leave it as it is and tackle the corruption within the disbursing agency, that’s where the problem is, not in the subsidy itself.

The 2011 National Honours appears to have brought to the fore (again) some of the challenges we face as a country. First was the poor processes of nomination and communication to nominees (which, it is reported, led to at least one prominent nominee rejecting the award). Second was the inadequacy of medals and certificates at the honours event. You would think that at that level things would be  better organised given the enormous resources committed but apparently not. Did the committee not know the exact number of people receiving the honours? Whose responsibility was it to make sure the materials were ready ahead of the award ceremony? I will be interested to know what happened to those responsible, and if the person (s) who brought such a height of national embarrassment on us were reprimanded. In other contexts, those responsible would have resigned by now and apologised to the nation. But here, if they even bother, a terse statement will be issued et la vie continue.

But more substantively, what are the criteria for receiving these honours? Who nominates the awardees? Is there an open process through which citizens can put forward candidates? Or are the awards simply the exclusive reserve of public servants and their associates?

Protest and collaboration

Nov19

‘we will sue ya, we will sue ya, we will sue ya, we will sue ya…’

Protest – I have ‘witnessed’ three youth related protests since my stay in this country. The first was student protests against fee increases and funding cuts to the education system. The second was the widely publicised protest against police killing of Mark Duggan in London. The third against the planned closure of UEA’s music school by 2014. The students ‘collected’ around 7,000 signatures and organised a protest rally on November 8 featuring various speakers. Their call was simple, leave the music school open, as a cultural legacy and for posterity.

I have been thinking about the student movements here and in my country and the similarities and differences between them. In both countries, students are averse to fee increases; the Unions receive some kind of subvention from their home ‘authorities’ and students use protests to express their grievances. However, there are marked differences in their approaches, for example the difference between a well researched signature campaign versus break the window ‘aluta continua’ which ends in wanton destruction of University facilities (that is not to say this does not happen here, but it is not the ‘norm’ as in my country). Many thoughts are running through my mind: is it a result of differing education systems?; an outcome of the different social, economic and political environments?; is it just ethical? An outcome of deprivation and frustration on the other side? Or is it history? Student activism here started during the 1880s, ours only started in 1945. Perhaps the long history has created a ‘system’ here, which is yet to manifest in ours? I wish we could borrow a thing or two from this side and share on the order in the pursuit of various desirable causes.

Collaboration – HIV remains a humongous public health challenge in Nigeria and the government adopted a multi-sectoral approach bringing together various actors to tackle the challenge. HIV counselling and testing (HCT) is an important medium to encourage people to know their status, and reduce progression to AIDS, since people could be put on anti-retroviral medicine once they know their status. It also contributes to reducing further infections as positive people are encouraged to adopt safer sex practices like condomising in order to prevent others from being infected, or themselves from being re-infected. However, counselling psychologists appear to be missing from the action. As long ago as I remember, I have been calling for better engagement of counselling psychologists in the provision of HIV counselling and pre-test and post-test services. This is pertinent because counselling psychologists deal with a range of issues from the psychology of learning, behaviour modification to adjustment.

So beyond HCT, they could play important roles in other areas like: monitoring drug adherence and factors that inhibit or promote the behaviour. Their roles can also extend to the study of life quality of life of PLHA, for which I am yet to encounter any data from Nigeria. QoL data serve important purposes in health policy decision-making and have been found to provide guidance in medical decision-making. It would serve some purpose in AIDS related care within hospital settings. QoL data could also provide needed information to understand the relationship between post traumatic stress disorders, other co-occurring psychological conditions such as depression and HIV. So far, I do not personally see clearly how the counselling association of Nigeria is engaging to play any significant role in tackling HIV, but I believe that their role is crucial, and a collaborative effort between health professionals, counselling psychologists and other actors would produce valuable results.

Implementing the African Youth Charter: wise up and act now!

Oct30

The African Youth Charter (AYC) is a quintessential demonstration of African governments’ commitment to entrench youth issues in national and regional decision-making processes. The charter provides for the various rights and freedoms outlined in the earlier article by connect Africa development editor. To what extent are these rights different from human rights provisions enshrined in each country’s constitution? In principle, countries could ratify the charter only to the extent that it is consistent with extant national laws. Even when provisions are at variance, the provisos in article two regarding ‘accordance with their constitutional processes’ makes it clear that the national laws will take pre-eminence.

In fact South Africa’s parliament had reservations regarding the provisions of article 24 which refers to mentally and physically challenged youth and ignores other forms of disabilities. However, given that section 213/13 of the South African constitution only permits parliament to accept or reject international agreements, with no provisions for reservations or ‘tampering,’ the charter was adopted ‘as is.’ For the most part, the AYC’s ‘rights and freedoms’ provisions are enshrined in various national constitutions and other international agreements like the Universal declaration on human rights, the African Charter on human and people’s rights and importantly, the African charter on the rights and welfare of the child. So what makes the rights provisions of the AYC different?

Perhaps, the other provisions regarding education, health care, participation, etc as contained in articles 10 through 25 give more credence to the ‘rights’ provisions. Within a human rights framework, many of these provisions could be considered as citizens entitlements.  Therefore, despite their demographic heterogeneity, their being within the age bracket 15 to 35puts them together, separates them from older adults and younger children and justifies a separate framework which tackles their needs.

In some countries the national youth policies, which in principle operationalise the AYC, distinguish between various categories of youth and how policies address their needs. The Nigerian youth policy released in 2009 addresses the needs of youth with disabilities, street kids, etc. but it remains to be seen how these issues have been addressed practically. In part, this is attributable to the fact that many youth ministries and departments lack the political mandate or budgetary provisions to implement many of the provisions of the charter or associated youth policies as these are the responsibilities of other ministries and departments. This calls for an integrated approach to youth development involving a range of departments, a concept which South Africa has been working to operationalise and recently drafted a strategy.

There are examples in the continent that can be adapted to youth. Within its education sector, Zambia attempts to better coordinate its resources by putting in place the Zambia Education Project Tracking System (ZEPTS) a database of education projects across the country implemented by government, development agencies and civil society. The Nigerian government in addition to drafting a youth mainstreaming framework over the last couple of years has recently initiated a process of inter-ministerial cooperation with the launch of a youth enterprise contest with the involvement of three key Ministries. Even this is short of ideal as various ‘line ministries, departments and agencies’ appear left out.

Achieving the aims of the youth charter requires the integration and proper funding of youth issues within national strategies like PRSPs and national vision documents. With countries like the Seychelles, Nigeria and Malawi with long term development goals elapsing in the year 2020, and Zambia and Kenya elapsing by 2030, meaningful progress can be attained by implementing programmes that benefit youth and designing a framework for monitoring and evaluation of both outputs and outcomes.

The road to ‘Banjul’ was long and bumpy but it produced one of Africa’s most rapidly ratified charters. Five years after, the situation of young people has not improved much. The challenges towards attaining the aims of the youth charter, related policies and the goals for the decade on youth development until 2018 are daunting. Governments must step-up and take charge, and do what is right by implementing pro-youth programmes focusing on education, employment and meeting young people’s needs, including the targeted social services. Otherwise, as has been reported in the Nigeria and South African media, with current high levels of unemployment and illiteracy, rather than being a demographic opportunity for enhancing their countries’ prospects for growth and development as propounded by some ‘youth bulge’ theorists, young people could be time bomb waiting to explode. The time for African governments to wise up, sit up and act is now.  Otherwise we may well be expecting an ‘Africa spring.’

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Originally contributed to Connect African Development

Sharing the pan-African youth experience

Oct7

The Pan African Youth Union (PYU) is dear to my heart. It’s one the few professional engagements over the years in which I continue to have true faith. I am not oblivious to the obvious challenges PYU faces but I see the potential for improvements.

PYU is one of the anti-colonial political youth movements established during the 1950s. Over the years, it has been invited as an observer organisation to OAU and later AU summits and is recognised by heads of state as ‘the continental coordinating body for youth organizations and … focal agency of the African Union on youth matters’. Prior to this the PYU was ‘recognised’ as a ‘specialised body’ of the African Union and was invited to meetings of the department of social affairs to make official representations. It now has an official seat at the meetings of African ministers of youth.

My first engagement with PYU was in January 2006 when I presented a draft concept paper on the proposed Pan African Youth Federation, being considered by the AU. The justification for this proposal was that African youth needed a representative body at the AU and the PYU had become largely redundant and lacked engagement and visibility. My presentation was well received, but the proposal was ‘thrown out,’ quite understandably on grounds of duplication. A review of the PYU was instead requested as alternative. During the second phase of the review, I spent two weeks in Algiers meeting with the PYU executive, presenting drafts of  revised documents, and receiving feedback. The exercise was fraught with political intrigues but the relations were quite cordial between me and the PYU officials, especially considering that some of them had considerably more experience than me in PYU matters. I spent another two weeks in Addis Ababa, reviewing documents at the end of which I submitted my report, recommendations and draft revised statutory documents.

The reviewed documents were discussed and adopted at the second ordinary congress of the PYU in Brazzaville. I took part in the congress and observed the proceedings from the sidelines. I had my hopes, fears and reservations, but I was also optimistic. So after all said and done, elections were held and new leaders emerged. Nigeria elected president, a ‘political’ post recommended to ensure balance of powers with those of the secretary general which Angola incidentally retained. Deputy Secretaries and vice presidents were also elected from each of the regions. Sudan was elected as the country to host the secretariat. Sudan had many challenges in hosting the secretariat, but I could imagine that there was significant support for its materialisation, at least within Sudan. When I met President Albashir in Khartoum in 2009, he appeared genuinely interested in youth matters and particularly in the African youth charter.

PYU remains fraught with many challenges and not much progress can be seen in terms of its engagement with the youth constituency. However, as an eternal optimist, I believe that things can improve for the better. The signs are there, younger people have been nominated to the PYU executive, a young woman now has a strong voice within its ranks than at any other time and PYU has become somewhat more visible in continental processes. It can only get better. It is my hope that towards its next congress (either in 2011 or 2012) more young people will take part in the congress. If possible new changes should be made in the statutes to reflect more recent thinking and make it possible for youth civil society bodies to join its ranks. A way of circumventing PYU’s links to government needs to be identified but in a way that is beneficial to PYU and its constituencies.

I have no doubts whatsoever that PYU will eventually become a truly representative body for youth in Africa. It’s only a matter of time. With its very rich history, PYU is obviously one organisation young Africans should not ignore. It needs everyone’s support to flourish.

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Originally written as a contribution to youthubafrica blogsite