As ECOWAS marked its 47 year anniversary, WACSOF Nigeria celebrates with ECOWAS by visiting schools in the nations capital. While visiting schools, representatives from WACSOF emphasized to the students on the creation of ECOWAS, the role and functions of the ECOWAS in the West Africa sub-region.
The team also enlightened the students on the role and functions of WACSOF in West Africa and its place under ECOWAS.
Burkina Faso military leader Paul-Henri Damiba has been deposed in the country’s second coup this year. Captain Ibrahim Traore took charge, dissolving the transitional government and suspending the constitution.
This happens to be the second government overthrow in the West Afrcian country. President Roch Kabore was ousted and overthrown from power in a coup in January by the military leader Paul-Henri Damiba over growing economic destabilities and insecurity.
While recently speaking to CIVICUS on the exacerbating crisis in Burkina Faso and the reaction of civil society, Mr Kop’ep Dabugat- a consultant at the West African Civil Society Forum noted that, “in line with the disunity that characterises civil society in Burkina Faso, the civil society response to the coup has been mixed. But a notable section of civil society seemed to welcome the most recent coup because they saw the Damiba-led junta not only as authoritarian but also as aligned with politicians from the regime of President Blaise Compaoré, in power from 1987 to 2014. They saw the real possibility that those politicians could regain power and shut all doors on victims of the Compaoré regime ever seeing justice.”
He further posited that “as a result, the view of the recent coup as a significant setback for the democratic transition agenda is not unanimously held among civil society. Additionally, for a major segment of civil society security appears to be a more urgent and priority concern than democracy, so the element that prevailed was the seeming incapacity of the Damiba-led junta to address the security situation. The effort of the traditional and religious groups that negotiated a seven-point agreement between the Damiba and Traoré factions of the military, ending violence and forestalling further bloodshed, however, deserves commendation. That effort seems to have established a baseline of engagement between the Traoré-led junta and civil society. Such constructive engagement with the new government seems to have continued, with the notable participation of civil society in the 14 October 2022 National Conference that approved a new Transitional Charter for Burkina Faso and officially appointed Traoré as transitional president.”
When asked about the state and position of human rights CSOs in the country, he pointed that, “Burkinabe CSOs in the human and civil rights space have grown increasingly concerned about the victimisation of politicians and members of the public perceived to be pro-France as well as by the marked upsurge of pro-Russian groups demanding that France and all its interests be kicked out of the country. On top of their concern about the raging jihadist insurgency, human and civil rights CSOs are also concerned about the stigmatisation and victimisation of citizens of Fulani ethnicity. This victimisation stems from the fact that many terrorist cells recruit Burkinabe people of Fulani extraction. There have been reports of arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings of Fulani people due to their alleged complicity in terrorist violence. Besides these two, no other notable cases of human rights abuses threatening civilians have been identified besides the ones already mentioned. Hence, even though it is still early in the Traoré-led government, it may be safe to rule out any consistent pattern of heightened human rights abuses under its watch.”
The West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF), has called on the Federal Government to take actions to reduce the number of out of school children.
WACSOF, created by the ECOWAS, is the umbrella network of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from the 15 member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). WACSOF is a Civil Society membership organisation, which is a privileged partner and advisor to ECOWAS and many institutions of which Nigeria is a strong member.
A statement signed by Lady Rose Onyeukwu-Ashinze, education thematic lead, WACSOG on behalf of the national coordinator says ‘UNESCO has drawn to our notice that there are 244 million children and youth between the ages of 6 and 18yrs worldwide (who) are still out of school of which Nigeria now has about 20 million out-of-school children. This is according to the latest global data on out-of-school children by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)”.
“WACSOF joins our voices to ask the Nigerian Government to Please rise up to this situation”.
It is well known that since February 14th 2022, The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), had been on strike which has NO end in view!! As at today, ASUP, the Union of Polytechnic lecturers, has commenced a strike action. It is also known that there is NO public school registration for the WAEC examination in Sokoto and Zamfara States, and some candidates in some South-East States cannot participate in the UMTE examinations due to the sit-at-home orders of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). These are a few of the developments negatively affecting the education sector.
They decried the impasse created by the lingering ASUU strike and insecurity issues in some states.
“The inability of our policymakers to creatively address this epic rot and negligence of the sector today to our bleak future is worrisome to WACSOF and education stakeholders”.
“We call on the government to address the degeneration in all aspects of education and skills acquisition in the country.
No Nation can develop beyond the education of her citizen”.
According to Lady Onyeukwu-Ashinze,the products of this haphazard education system will be required to compete in the global market place for scarce global resources.
“It is also worrisome to us that the education sector crisis has been made worse by the intractable insecurity in various parts of Nigeria, the girl child educational inequity, and poverty that has denied access to quality education by majority of Nigerians. There is a need to get all hands on deck to Foster confidence by all stakeholders in the education system”.
She said “it is high time the government call for an emergency in the sector and call stakeholders to a honest and Frank dialogue on the state of education in Nigeria.
STOP THE DISRUPTIONS TO THE EDUCATION SECTOR, INCREASE BUDGETARY ALLOCATIONS TO THE SECTOR AND RETURN NIGERIAN CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS BACK TO SCHOOL”.
The West African Civil Society Forum hosted a team from Ford Foundation at its regional headquarter in Abuja, Nigeria on 14th October, 2022. This comes months after series of regular engagement with Ford Foundation to address salient management issues in the organization.
While promising its continuous engagement and partnership with WACSOF, Ford Foundation highlighted key areas to further strenghten its relationship with WACSOF.
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