The reigning ECOWAS Peace Ambassador, Hyeladzirra “Zirra” Banu, has called on ECOWAS governments and institutions to consider establishing an ECOWAS Radio as a platform for citizens to know more about their region and to “understand what ECOWAS is doing” to improve their lives.
“As young ECOWAS citizens, we implore you, using the capabilities of your office, to create more opportunities for us,” Ms Banu told regional lawmakers in a speech at the closing of the 2013 First Ordinary Session of the Third Legislature of the ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja on Monday, 20th May 2013.
“We would like to be employed, to get meaningful work after school. We would like the opportunity to be educated, to be enlightened by functioning schools and universities.
And we would also appreciate the opportunity to be given platforms, avenues to make a difference at various levels,” she said.
The 23-year-old Nigerian beauty queen, who holds honours degrees in International Relations, Political Science and Communications, won the Miss ECOWAS Nigeria and the Miss ECOWAS Peace Ambassador Pageants in 2012 and has been using the platform to propagate youth empowerment and the promotion of regional peace and development.
She told the lawmakers that the number of Africans between 15 and 24 years is expected to double to 400 million by 2045, out pacing the current rate of job creation, meaning that the majority of young people will be unemployed.
The ECOWAS Peace envoy warned that unemployment fuelled political violence and recruitment into armed groups and militias in the region with one in two young people who join rebel movements citing unemployment as their reason.
She also said that the community youth supported the proposal to enhance the powers of the ECOWAS Parliament so that its decisions would have more positive impacts on the community citizens, while stressing the need to “bring the Parliament closer to the people, especially our young ones.”
In his response, the Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament and Nigeria’s Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, assured the Peace Ambassador that the regional lawmakers would look into her requests on behalf of the region’s young people.
He expressed delight that the Parliament in session was able to consider and approve all the five Referrals sent to it by the ECOWAS Commission including the ECOWAS Security and its Administrative and General Conditions on Social Arrangement and the Supplementary Act on Social Dialogue Forum.
The others were the Regional Action Plan on Youth Employment, Regional Action Plan Against Child Labour, and the Draft Supplementary Act relating to the Establishment and Implementation of Joint Border Posts within Member States.
The Speaker also said the Ad hoc Committee on the Political Crises in Mali and Guinea Bissau submitted recommendations which resulted in “courageous resolutions” adopted by the Parliament for transmission to the appropriate quarters.
