Poverty, bad governance causing militancy, insurgency in Africa — Don

Fri, Nov 23, 2018 | By publisher


Security

Victor Ojakorotu, Professor of Politics from North-West University, South Africa, on Friday in Lagos said that rising poverty, youth unemployment and bad governance was aggravating militancy and insurgency in Africa.

Addressing journalists on the forthcoming conference on Human Security Concerns in Africa, the visiting scholar said that sustainable development would remain elusive if security challenge was not addressed in the continent.

“It is necessary for African scholars to diligently diagnose the various dimensions of human security issues in the continent.

“The future of the continent actually depends on how security of the individual African citizen is guaranteed,” said the Nigerian scholar.

According to him, Africa is yet to overcome the scourge of insecurity, decades after apartheid, slavery and colonialism.

Ojakorotu said this had assumed dimensions of war, terrorism, insurgency, xenophobia, genocide and desperate migration.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN reports that about 60 scholars from 10 African countries will participate in the three-day conference to be hosted by Institute of African and Diaspora Studies (IADS), University of Lagos.

Also speaking on the programme, Dr Kayode Eesuola, Coordinator of IADS, said the continuing trajectory of human insecurity in Africa underscored the necessity for the December 13 to 15 conference.

“The large scale and pervasive human insecurity in our continent is fueling illegal migration, insurgency, crime and high mortality of Africans.

“Pan-African struggles fought brain drain, but today the rate of human insecurity here is causing intellectuals and professionals to willingly migrate their skills to Europe and elsewhere as a way of escaping insecurity.

“We hope that after the intellectuals thoroughly examine this human security problem in Africa and proffer solutions to overcome it, governments in the continent will take implementing these solutions a priority,’’ he said. (NAN)

– Nov. 23, 2018 @ 13:25 GMT |

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