#TheAfricaweWant: Actionaid, Activista commemorate African Liberation Day!

Actionaid Nigeria in partnership with the African Rising and Activista Nigeria have joined forces to commemorate one of the most special days to be celebrated by the Africans, African Liberation Day 2019 yesterday, May 24th in Abuja.

This year’s commemoration with a theme “Redefining the African Narrative” had amongst other participants, youth activists and comrades, the media, young professionals across the country in attendance.

Actionaid Country Director, Ene Obi, in her welcome address urged the Nigerian youths to sit up and push for the implementation of policies that are focused on redefining the unfavourable narratives about our nation and Africa as a continent.

“You are the future of this nation. Your ability to take proactive steps and actions towards changing these unpalatable narratives our about country and continent would lay solid foundations for the coming generation” she said.

Speaking on Africa’s democratic governance she said despite several remarkable development in democratic governance across the continent, the processes that support democracy are not without flaws.

“There have been countless narratives of how weak our democratic governance has become due to several internal factors which are mostly country specific”. Obi stated.

She however recommended that African Union through the African Governance Platform (African Governance Architecture Platform – AGA) must adopt a democracy centered framework to ameliorate these problems in our democratic system.

One of the ActionAid Nigeria Team, Agenyi Arome spoke eloquently on the role of young Africans in shaping the narrative particularly in addressing the emerging shrinking civic and political spaces in Nigeria.

“As young Africans we must understand we have pivotal roles to play in expanding the political spaces as well as properly positioning ourselves within the civic space for the tasks ahead”.

“The onus is on us to protect our democratic system at all levels for the sake of posterity” he alluded.