By Yaw Ansah, GNA, Courtesy European Union
Abuja, April 9, GNA- The sit-tight syndrome of many African leaders is one of the major threats to the growth of democracy on the continent.
This has been the trend in many countries including Uganda, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, Angola, Cameroun, Zimbabwe, Togo, Tunisia and Cote D’Ivore.
Mr Arome Agenyi, Policy, Advocacy and Campaign Officer of Action Aid Nigeria, who speaking at a day’s workshop for selected Journalists from West Africa, noted that between the years 2001 to 2010, the continent had recorded 14 attempts by leaders to prolong tenure in the office.
The two-day event sought to deepen the knowledge of participants on the African Governance Architecture (AGA) inspired by the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU) that expresses the AU’s determination to ‘promote and protect human and people’s rights, consolidate democratic institutions and culture and ensure good governance and the rule of law’.
Jointly organised by Action Aid and West African Civil Society Forum, the journalists were schooled on provisions of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG), sets of regulations developed by the AU in the year 2007 as a roadmap to encourage better governance across the continent.
Mr Agenyi noted that some of the leaders, who got elected through the democratic process, manipulate some vital democratic institutions including the judiciary, legislature to enable them to suppress opposition in a bid to hang on to power unduly.
He said one of the surest ways to grow and maintain good governance on the continent was for Africa leaders to adhere to the provisions of AGA and ACDEG, which seeks to foster dialogue and share comparable lessons on trends, challenges, opportunities and prospects for improving governance and democracy among the Member States.
As at March 2017, he recalled that 45 out of 54 African member states had signed up the ACDEG, of which 29 have given consent to it as a valid official document and for which it shall implement.
“Being a State party to the instrument, all the countries were bound to adhere to its core principles by domesticating them in the system of governance of their country.
“By domestication, it means national laws should be formulated, if not available, and certain action should be taken by the government to promote them in the country,” he said.
Mr Arome hinted that out of the countries that had signed up to the AGA only Togo had domesticated and submitted the status of implementation report.
Participants at the forum called on leaders to ensure that the continent was peaceful to facilitate growth, create employment opportunities for the youth, to deter them from seeking greener pastures in the west.
They said a continent that has good governance would also be reliant and maintain its highly skilled labour that was also migrating to Europe and America due to bad governance, conflict, despair and deteriorating public institutions.
GNA
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