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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.


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