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Death of Professor Adebayo Adedeji, eminent intellectual, scholarly, pan-Africanist, international civil servant and pioneer Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (1975 -1991) ) April 25, 2018, at the age of 87 years.
He was buried on July 6 in his hometown of Ijebu- Ode in the Philippines. Ogun state. On July 7, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) held a symposium in his honor and in memory in Lagos, on the theme: "Africa Development Program: Lessons from the Adebayo Adedeji Years" and policy options for the 21st century ". to be one of the participants in this event, which included participants from all over Africa – Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal, Namibia, Liberia, Ethiopia, Cameroon – academics, administrators, public intellectuals, economists , political experts, who after the others paid tribute to Professor Adedeji.
There was a sitting president – H. E. Hage Geingob, president of Namibia, and two former presidents – Dr. Yakubu Gowon of Nigeria and Dr. Amos Sawyer of Liberia. Professor Peter Anyang & # 39; Nyong & # 39; o, Governor of Kisumu County Government, Kenya, political scientist and scholar, delivered keynote address. In addition to the tributes, the symposium then focused on three major issues: Africa's economic development, governance and the challenges of economic transformation in Africa and Adebayo Adedeji on the trajectory of Africa. public administration and development in Africa.
I would like to congratulate Ms. Vera Songwe and her team at ECA for bringing together what has turned out to be an appropriate tribute and a fruitful symposium. Of all the events that have been organized to celebrate the death of Professor Adebayo Adedeji, I find ECA's most informative loyalty. On May 14, 2018, ECA also held a lecture in the honor of Professor Adedeji. Established in 2015, Professor Adebayo Adedeji's lecture series is a major annual event on ECA's calendar, and this international organization has always honored him during his lifetime and now, after.
There is an important lesson here for institutions and governments in Africa. We often have trouble remembering, we forget too easily, and in the warm selfish environment that is Africa, once a man leaves a position or an organization, he is soon forgotten and put aside and his achievements trampled by ambitious successors. In its various activities, the Economic Commission for Africa continues to prove that it is an institution guided by values, memory and ethics. By recalling and identifying the icons and memory of the past for the current constructions, we link the past to the present and erect new paradigms in the corridors of history.
What the Nigerian government has not done for Adedeji by promoting it as an icon and focusing on its significance. In Nigeria, governments hate memory. They prefer to quarrel with the past. It is partly for this reason, I believe, that the representatives of the Nigerian government were visibly absent at the Adedeji Symposium. There is another reason. As far as I can remember, the Nigerian government itself has done nothing visibly in the honor of Adedeji, with the exception of the publication of the same. a routine obituary statement by President Muhammadu Buhari, noting the death of Adedeji. Some government officials also presented at his burial in Ijebu Ode on July 6, wearing resplendent agbada. They probably knew Adedeji as that old intellectual of Ijebu and had no idea of his place in history.
Nigerian leaders worship ceremonies, any ceremony that would give them the opportunity to wear beautiful clothes and shoes, take pictures and pretend to be what they are not. But when it comes to a discussion of ideas, you will not find them attentive. The anti-intellectualism of not only Nigerian but African leaders in general, with a few exceptions, is largely responsible for the crisis of poor governance on the continent. A ruling elite who loves ceremonies and avoids ideas and intellection can not bring together the capacity needed to transform the continent. The silence, even in the Southwest, about Professor Adebayo Adedeji is not proportional to his greatness. It's outrageous.
In Nigeria, history is no longer an obligatory part of the curriculum, the memory is short and the emotions are more important than the good reason, still, it is disturbing for an adebayo adedeji, dying at 87 years old, to be misunderstood. And yet, he was in his life, one of Nigeria's most prominent decision makers and ambassador on the international scene. Nigeria has been blessed with a number of international civil servants who present and future generations owe a debt of respect and gratitude. Among them are Simeon Adebo, first Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, his protégé, Professor Adebayo Adedeji, Pioneer Executive Secretary of ECA, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, also Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, also a speaker at the United Nations. # 39; Adedeji. Alhaji Uthman Yola, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Chief Emeka Anyaoku who made his mark at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London as an official, and later as Secretary-General.
There are others, many of whom also attended the Adedeji symposium, and who after retirement have been largely abandoned by Nigeria, while they are people who should be properly informed and benefit new opportunities for governance and leadership. , given their cosmopolitan experience and exposure and professional contacts. Adedeji suffered a similar fate, although President Olusegun Obasanjo called him again in 2000 to help redefine the Nigerian civil service. He was for the most part "a prophet without honor in his own house"; his ambition to become the president of Nigeria never left the drawing, but the international community embraced him and continued to use his talents and influence until he chose to leave active public service in 2010, when he turned 80 years old. 19659005] Despite all its international achievements, Nigeria, a country that no longer knows how to manage and appreciate its talents, made Adedeji in its early years. He became a professor at the University of Ife at the age of 36 and was one of the leaders of the famous Ife School of Economics, Social Sciences and Administration. public. At the age of 40, General Yakubu Gowon, shortly after the Civil War, appointed him Minister of Economic Development and Reconstruction of Nigeria. Adedeji has not only played a role in the planning, design and implementation of the Third National Development Plan, but has been at the forefront of the reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconstruction of Nigeria after the war.
Instructively, he was the first general director and president of the National Youth Service (NYSC) regime – one of the National Civil War Post National Unity Post-introduced projects. Gowon's administration. It was not surprising that General Gowon, the patron of Adedeji, attended his funeral in Ijebu-Ode, and also at the ECA Symposium where he described his intellectual role well. Not only did he respond to the beards he had been led by irreverent intellectuals, he carefully explained the politics of the Gowon years
. In 1975, Professor Adedeji was appointed Executive Secretary and Deputy Secretary General of the UN in charge of ECA based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As such, Adedeji has reached his majority – not necessarily as the most senior Executive Secretary of ECA, but as a man of impact, intelligence and energy. tremendous ingenuity. He has gone from being a distinguished national servant to a distinguished international civil servant. It has built ECA into an effective mechanism to promote the good interest and development of Africa and as the main institution of policy and research. Those who worked with him or came under his influence, attested to the Lagos Colloquium, his creativity, his originality, his pan-Africanism, his constant commitment to the future transformation of Africa, his self-confidence, his personality powerful and unlimited capacity. This was not all praise though. I had the impression that Adedeji was considered behind his back, as an intellectual autocrat, who did not know how to cope with gross incompetence or intellectual inadequacy.
He was respected and celebrated nonetheless for his distinction as a man of ideas, and for his commitment to African development and African issues. He criticized the Western development model and used ECA as a platform to bring an African perspective to the Western social sciences and to seek an alternative framework for the development and transformation of Africa. He led the research of Africa's alternative framework for structural adjustment in the 1980s. He also argued in various writings that Africa needed to be self-reliant and self-reliant and that Africans needed to look for African solutions to African problems. He was also a renowned visionary and architect of regional integration and cooperation on the African continent, believing that everything is stronger than its integrating parts and that an integrated Africa would play a greater role in the global space. His efforts have led to the emergence of regional communities such as COMESA and ECOWAS, and he is now considered the "father of ECOWAS" and the thinker and the main thinker of the Plan of Action. Lagos action (1980), the Lagos Final Act (1980) and the Abuja Treaty (1991). He has also been the lead architect of the African Peer Review Mechanism designed to promote the goals of good governance and responsive leadership in African states. Adedeji is distinguished in generating knowledge, providing leadership to the younger generation, designing and defining imperatives for the future with the strength of his intellect, his personality, his example and his ability to manage processes and achieve results.
This is the man who was buried in Ijebu Ode on July 6 and who was celebrated by the institution that he helped to build on July 7 in Lagos. His heritage is spotless because ideas do not die. It is regrettable, however, that his vision of African integration is still a work in progress and a scandal, which his country, Nigeria, has so far refused to sign or approve of. Continental African Free Trade Agreement (AFCTA) that he helped to conceptualize. the 80s It may be fair to argue that approval or mere signing does not guarantee the expected results, but perhaps the principles are important. It is also disturbing that the African Peer Review Mechanism is no longer in line with the original objectives. It has been reduced to a better discussion forum, and a pitiful singing forum praised for careless African leaders. The transformation of Africa remains a major task. Intra-African trade is a miserable 15%, foreign companies and portfolio investors largely dominate the economic space, the market is at odds with government policies, poverty and inequality continue to flourish, and the continent suffers from leadership The crisis is this: leaders who sit on their positions change the Constitution and violate the terms of office.
The bottom line is that there is still much to be done to transform Africa for the sake of the people. S. Asante described Adedeji as "an African Cassandra" and perhaps he is right. After his retirement in 1991, Adedeji established in his hometown an African Center for Development and Strategic Studies (ACDESS) which quickly became a water point for intellectuals and policy experts. With his retirement from active service at the age of 80, the Center has entered limbo. His children – 11 of them, the man was prolific in each department – should consider the possibility of entrusting the ACDESS and its resources, including the proposed permanent site, to the Economic Commission for Africa. Africa, which has the means to transform the center into one of its major units across Africa, and thus support Adebayo Adedeji's legacy.
II: Macron's visit to Lagos
The event of the Governor of Lagos State, which hosted two Presidents, French President Emmanuel Macron and Hungarian President Hage Geingob, was One of the most outstanding events in Lagos. Lagos is no longer just the economic center of Nigeria; it is gradually becoming an important center of international diplomacy. President Macron's visit in particular had all the hallmarks of soft power diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, citizen diplomacy and economic diplomacy. Lagosians have yet to recover from the excitement that has been generated by this visit and the humility and humanity of Macron. President Macron's visit did more for Nigerian-French relations than any other initiative since a cat-and-mouse relationship was established between the two countries in the 1960s. Nigeria has always been irritated by the penchant for France for its former French-speaking colonies and its support for Biafra during the civil war.
A visit in 2018 by the young French president made France love many Nigerians. The Lagos state government has not only rolled out the carpet, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has played the role of a perfect host. For President Macron, the visit was a kind of homecoming, and a memory trip, having lived and worked at the French Embassy in Lagos 25 years ago. He visited the new sanctuary of Afrika, where he danced, pumped hands, took selfies, paid tribute to Fela and Afro-beat and spoke the street language: "What's happening at the shrine remains at sanctuary". He also gave an interview to the BBC where he spoke English pidgin. The next day, President Macron ordered the building of the Alliance Française in Lagos, named Center Mike Adenuga, and bestowed on Otunba Mike Adenuga, one of France's highest honors. Not done, President Macron was a guest of the Tony Elumelu Foundation where he addressed more than 2,000 African entrepreneurs and interacted with young business leaders. Congratulations to the Government of Lagos State, Otunba Mike Adenuga and the Tony Elumelu Foundation as well as President Macron: it was really good and profound.
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