Nigeria’s Obiageli Ezekwesili in conjunction with the Robert Bosch Academy presents the #FixPolitics Initiative with an inaugural conference in Lagos.
Ezekwesili who is currently a Richard von Weizsäcker fellow under the academy, has spent the last 6 months probing the effect that the poor quality of politics in a country has on governance, sound economic policies, growth and development in Africa and on Nigeria in particular, and has used her findings in collaboration with a Work Study Group component to design a structural change agenda to #FixPolitics and polity of Nigeria and the rest of Africa.
The conference which holds on 17 of February at the Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos, Nigeria and via live stream will convene key global players in nation building, active citizenship and the media.
Expected at the conference are Prof. Johann Lambsdorff, Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Passau, Germany; Prof. Peter Lewis Warren Weinstein, Chair of African Studies, School of Advanced and International Studies, John Hopkins University Washington DC, USA, and Dr. Aloy Chife, Managing Partner/CEO Saana Capital, LLC.
Frank Nweke Jr., former Nigerian Minister and Co-Founder, NzukoLabs; Aisha Yesufu, Founder, Citizens Hub; Samson Itodo, Executive Director, YIAGA; Dr. Amina Salihu, Senior Program Officer, MacArthur Foundation, Abuja, Nigeria; Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), amongst others.
The Berlin, Germany-based Academy, stated that from the findings of Ezekwesili’s research, politics in Nigeria and other African countries is in dire need of a structural change. Politics on the continent must be innovated if Africa is to take advantage of the efficiencies that come with the technological revolution to speed up the development ladder, tackle mass poverty, and catch up with other prosperous regions of the world.
Against this background, the #FixPolitics Initiative will propose innovative ways of empowering and centering the citizens in their countries’ politics before, during, and after the electoral cycle.
The conference also facilitates opportunity for a wider audience to sharpen the existing groundworks of the Work Study Groups component of the research and help concretize a post-meeting strategic plan that will mobilize citizens’ leadership to course correct the struggling democracy of Nigeria and ultimately, Africa.
To join the conversation via live stream, you can use any of these online channels; Website: www.fixpolitics.org; YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/fix-politics; Instagram: @fixpoliticsnigeria; Twitter: @fixpoliticsnig; Facebook: Fix Politics NG
