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Prez Mahama: “Address inequalities that affect women”

 

President John Dramani Mahama has urged Africa to address the existing inequalities that affect women in order to achieve accelerated development.

He said unless rape, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), high maternal mortality, negative widowhood practices and other gender-based violations of women, who constituted more than 50 per cent of the population, were addressed, not much could be achieved in terms of development on the continent.

President Mahama was giving the keynote address at the inaugural Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum held at the Olin Hall of the Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

It brought together international leaders, students and other distinguished personalities to discuss Africa’s challenge in keeping with Chinua Achebe’s life and works.

Originally scheduled for  last week Tuesday, the lecture had to be shifted to Monday to enable President to attend the funeral of President Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

Women in Africa

Giving the lecture on “Women in Africa: How the Other Half Lives”, President Mahama commended African women for their huge contributions to the continent’s development, for which they should be supported.

He promised to use every means to ensure that gross inequalities were corrected to ensure that “girls are able to live their lives without any sexual abuse.”

In this direction, President Mahama stressed the need for men to effectively compliment women’s contribution in the society to ensure accelerated progress.

He paid glowing tribute to the well acclaimed writer, Chinua Achebe and Nelson Mandela of South Africa, for their contribution to Africa.

Recalling the deep sense of satisfaction he personally derived from reading Chinua Achebe’s books more than 40 years ago, particularly, "Things Fall Apart", President Mahama said it was a right of passage for him and the world around him.

Achebe's widow

For her part, Mrs Christie Achebe, widow of Chinua Achebe, referred to some of the books written by her husband about true leadership.

In her view, Mandela truly fitted the example of a true leader, which Chinua Achebe talked about in his books because unlike some African leaders who wanted to be life Presidents, Mandela served only one term.

She also praised Dr Kwame Nkrumah, first President of Ghana for being a nationalist who showed the way for Africans to follow.

Mrs Achebe charged President Mahama and other African leaders to take advantage of the examples of Mandela, saying “the world looks up to you for this to be done”

Other speakers

Prof. Abena Busia, Chair of the Department of Women and Gender Studies, Rutgers University, read some poetry as part of the function, which was preceded with splendid cultural performance from the Sankofa Group led by Kofi Donkor.

At a roundtable conference on the role of women in the development and democratisation of Africa, Nana Oye Lithur, Ghana’s Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, gave an account of steps that had been taken in Ghana to support women and to ensure that girls stayed in school and avoided teenage pregnancies.

Apart from generally improving the education of girls, the minister said the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) had played an important role to uplift women. 

She stressed the need to cut the huge maternal mortality figures and improve the representation of African women in leadership positions. 

She took the opportunity to praise President Mahama for supporting women and giving them the chance to contribute their quota to governance.

Amini Kajunju, President of the African-American Institute, harped on the need to enforce education of people, especially women, and to tell the success story of African women working very hard to uphold their dignity, apart from taking care of themselves and their families.

She condemned the false negative stories about Africa in some Western media based on false statistics to create a certain negative mind-set about the continent, without doing basic checks on such stories.

Amini Kajunju spoke against spending all the resources to educate only girls, saying every effort must be made to educate boys too in order not to shift the problem of the imbalance in education, adding “Every African child should be given the necessary education and allowed to become whatever he or she wants to be in future”.

In his discussion, Prof. Peter Rosenblum, Professor of International Law and Human Rights, Bard College, touted Ghana’s success story based on her democratic credentials, free press, strengthened institutions and said Ghana was lucky not to have found oil earlier.

He asked that Ghana’s oil revenue should be used to support the development of her citizens, especially farmers.

In his contribution, Mr Chidi Achebe, quoting his father, Chinua Achebe, described President Mahama as one of the greatest hopes for Africa.

The lecture, which attracted international leaders and students, academics and thinkers, looked at the challenges of keeping the links of Achebe and Mandela alive.

 

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