From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
The African Union (AU) has urged Nigeria to serve as a motivator for the African continent in terms of governance and other areas.
The AU delegates on Country Review Mission (CRM) on the second Peer Review process made the call in Abuja.
The Lead Panelist on AU CRM, Prof Janneh Abdoulie, while speaking at a town hall meeting organised by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) to engage state and non-actors on the review process, said it was a welcome idea for them to be in the country to further assess the reports approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Abdoulie also said the reports under assessment would serve as a reference record for others.
Abdoulie further said the review mission will address the four thematic areas of democracy, political governance, economic, social development, and corporate governance.
‘It is an important process of the APRM that will make Nigeria a mirror in Africa, being the first country to carry out the second review process after four years period given by the AU before another review,’ Abdoulie said.
In her remarks, the Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Christiana Adeyeye, hailed Nigeria’s APRM Secretariat for its review process to bring more development to the country.
Adeyeye said the NAFDAC was looking at encouraging the local contents for the creation of jobs in Nigeria, to also divert the country from being over-dependent on foreign goods.
‘Whether medicine or drugs, clothing, we are over-dependent on foreign goods, and COVID-19 pandemic has opened the eyes of everybody, especially in the area of the health sector,’ Adeyeye said.
On his part, the Corps Marshal, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr Boboye Oyeyemi, said the corps was exploiting a new mechanism to boost its services to reduce traffic crisis and fatality in Nigeria road.
Oyeyemi who was represented by the Deputy Corps Marshal, Policy Research and Solution, Mr Victor Nwokolo, said the corps’ major concern was to meet the global best practices in its mode of operation on roads.
‘We are trying to apply the global best practices to see how we can reduce the number of casualties on the highway, we are equally cooperating with the ECOWAS region to see that we maintain uniformity and similarity,’ Oyeyemi said.