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‘We Need Unified Economic Planning For Africa’

By Uchechi Okafor
20 December 2015   |   3:01 am
Anikwe stated, “Clearly, the future of the African continent depends on human-centered participatory and rights-based approaches to development that recognize the need to prioritize the promotion of cultural identity, shared values and creative geniuses as tools for reconstruction, social transformation and African Unity and development”.
Director, Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Prof. Emeka Nwabueze; Chairman of the Occasion/Paper Reviewer of University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Mark Anikpo; Guest Lecturer of University of Syracuse, New York, U.S., Prof. Horace G. Campbell; Deputy Vice Chancellor, Administration, Prof. Edwin Igbokwe and Vice Chancellor, UNN, Prof. Benjamin Ozumba during a courtesy visit to his office

Director, Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Prof. Emeka Nwabueze; Chairman of the Occasion/Paper Reviewer of University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Mark Anikpo; Guest Lecturer of University of Syracuse, New York, U.S., Prof. Horace G. Campbell; Deputy Vice Chancellor, Administration, Prof. Edwin Igbokwe and Vice Chancellor, UNN, Prof. Benjamin Ozumba during a courtesy visit to his office

Last week Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC) held a seminar that had Prof. Horace Campbell, an Emeritus Professor of African American Studies and Political Science and Director, Pan African Studies at Syracuse University, New York, United States delivering a lecture on ‘Reconstruction, Transformation and African Unity in the 21st Century’. The lecture was a collaboration of Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization and the Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Enugu State.

The seminar was aimed at outlining the challenges of reconstruction in Africa while recognizing the eight core areas of reconstruction which include agriculture, housing and construction, health delivery, water and sanitation, electricity and energy, educational transformation linked to information communication technologies and environmental repair. The seminar featured speakers from within and outside Nigeria. They included Dr. Horace Campbell, Prof. Mark Anikpo, Dr. Casmir Ani and a host of others.

In his welcome address, Director-General, Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization, Ferdinard Anikwe, stated that the organization was motivated by the socio-economic and political challenges facing Africa. He expressed unhappiness at the rate of poverty in the continent and enjoined all to look inward to their indigenous cultures and exploit the cultural potentials for growth and development.

Anikwe stated, “Clearly, the future of the African continent depends on human-centered participatory and rights-based approaches to development that recognize the need to prioritize the promotion of cultural identity, shared values and creative geniuses as tools for reconstruction, social transformation and African Unity and development”.

Apart from Anikwe’s address on the need for the utilization of cultural potentials to eradicate poverty, Campbell cited Juluis Nyerere’s genius, as he said, “We need unified economic planning for Africa. Until the economic power of Africa is in our hands, the masses can have no real concern and no real interest for safeguarding our security, for ensuring the stability of our regimes, and for bending their strength to their fulfillment of our ends. With our united resources, energies and talents we have the means, as soon as we show the will, to transform the economic structures of our individual states from poverty to that of wealth, from inequality to the satisfaction of popular needs. Only on a continental basis shall we be able to plan the proper utilization of all our resources for the full development of our continent”.

The seminar which was well attended by traditional rulers across Enugu State, lecturers and students of University of Nigeria, secondary school students across Enugu among others also featured cultural performances from various cultural troupes.

As the event drew to a close, the organization expressed its gratitude to Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Benjamin Ozumba, and Director, Institute of African Studies, Professor Emeka Nwabueze, for their immerse support and partnership in making the lecture a success and encouraged them to continue in that line.

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