Skip to main content
President Buhari, UN Bande charge Ecowas Parliamentarians on Protection of Elderly



The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari has charged ECOWAS lawmakers to adopt policies that supports and protects the rights of older persons across the region.

Delivering a keynote speech by the President who was represented by the Minister for Special duty, Senator George Akume at the conference on the Right of the older people hosted by the ECOWAS Parliament, noted that it is an entrenched Africa culture to always respect the rights of the older persons in the society.

He said, “Globally, the general trends in ageing process are identical but the approaches adopted by different government determine the extent of human rights compliance.

“In every African society, older person are usually respected and given a place of honour, decrying however that westernization has corrupted the norms, with western civilization, some of these traditional processes that bestow honour and respect on the older persons are on the decline.

“It is the duty of African therefore to bring back such glory and honor to their older ones, and we cannot fold our arms and expect others to do these for us”.

He continued, “We also need to collaborate and join efforts with other nations of the World including international communities to fight for the rights of older persons globally, this conference has come up to afford us the opportunity to take up some of these responsibilities.

“Therefore, I urge all African countries here represented to take back to their home countries that we need to wake up to the challenges of older persons in the region”.

While noting efforts made by the Nigerian government on the protection of elderly, the President said “In our efforts towards addressing the rights of older persons, the Nigerian government has put up some measures including the Senior Citizens Act of 2018.

“The Act mandates all tiers of government to establish national citizen’s centres to provide care and training for the older ones”.

He added that the government of Nigeria has also harmonized its pension scheme to eliminate all hitches in pension administration, as public servants are engaged in mandatory pre-retirement training to ensure that they utilize their pensions.

“It is important to remind ourselves as Africans that care for older persons is culturally and traditionally rooted and highly respected in African societies and Nigeria is not an exception to this.


“However, modalities and approaches to these are frequently reviewed to address the current peculiar realities of civilization, the Federal Government is studying the Protocol on the African Charter to Human and Peoples Rights on the right of older persons in Africa and this would be ratified in due course” He stated.
Similarly, the President of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Muhammad Bande in his keynote stressed on the need for the policy to be championed by the Parliamentarians in their various country.


Bande said, “Aging is a fact of life and transitions have happened also on the continent in the social and economic landscape where we need to do better than we used to do guarantee the respect and the dignity of older persons.

“What is important is really what the conference says it would do, which is Human rights situation of older persons, this is really key, now for the United Nations, the basic call is the idea of leaving non behind” he added.

Continuing, he added that, “It is fundamental to note that when dealing with being looked after, we are dealing with their rights, and we are also dealing with recognition not only of their contributions in the past but the contributions that they can continue to make.

“This is really critical, I do not need to say more than this, we know the meaning of the wisdom of the old, we know the feeling of satisfaction that you are doing what they have done in appreciation of what they have done.

“I think it’s the Namibians who have this notion of “it is the age of sit and eat”, simply let them sit and enjoy what they have done, it is absolutely important. Bande emphasized.


Sponsored Ad: @ZFTF

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reject List From Countries In breach Of 30 Percent Women Representation – Njai Tells ECOWAS Parliament

A Gambian representative to the ECOWAS Parliament, Honorable Fatoumatta Njai has challenged the Community Parliament to reject list of countries that are short of thirty percent women’s representation to the Parliament. Speaking in an exclusive interview at the official Opening Ceremony of the Fifth Legislature’s delocalized meeting of the Joint Committee on Social Affairs, Gender and Women Empowerment / Education, Science and Culture/Health, currently holding in Monrovia, Liberia on the theme, “ Empowerment of Women in the ECOWAS Region.” Njai said that some countries lack female representation in the Conference of Bureau, this according to her is disregarding the ECOWAS Rules of Procedure. “The Rules of Procedures mentioned that each member country should have a female representation at the Conference of Bureau. Each country has three members in the Conference of Bureau, so each country can at least have one female member which will be thirty percent representation. I thin...
Post a Comment
Read more
ECOWAS Parliament pushes for immediate solutions to region's humanitarian crisis Lawmakers of the ECOWAS Parliament says its seeking to invoke its parliamentary powers to resolve the humanitarian crisis across region. This is following the report presentation by the Parliamentary Joint committee on Political Affairs, Peace and Security and APRM/Legal and Judicial Affairs, Human Rights, Protection of the Child and Vulnerable Groups on the security of the Region. As contained in the report, the political situation in the Republic of Guinea as well as the political and security situation in Mali among others, calls for serious attention most especially as it regards to pre and post-election situations, and which also arises from the preparedness level for the presidential elections that are planned in 2020.  Honourable Snowe Jnr of Liberia responding to the report said that there is an urgent need for the ECOWAS Parliament to utilize its power ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Deploy Technology for free and credible elections- Goodluck Jonathan challenge ECOWAS

Ifeanyi Valentine Nigeria’ s Former President, Dr.Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has called on the ECOWAS Sub region to utilize the possibility of technology in our electoral process so as to have free and fair elections. He said this while making his contribution as one of the panelists at the ongoing First Extra Ordinary Session put together by the Fifth Legislature of ECOWAS Parliament holding in Monrovia the capital city of Liberia. According to him the reason why citizens of the sub region often times lost confident in their leaders is because they believe the use the power of incumbency to manipulate the electoral system so as to continue to perpetuate themselves in power even at the detriment of the people. He said that if full technology is deployed in all the stages involved in the electoral process the elections will not only be free and fair but it will completely eliminate the manipulation and rigging of election results.’ “When technology is deployed across board you w...
Post a Comment
Read more