Dr Raymond Edoh Bags Humanitarian Award for the Year

The UN-Habitat Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. Raymond Edoh, on Thursday in Abuja bagged a National award under the balcony of the National Association of Nigerian Students, and Nigerian Youth Congress, NYC, as the Humanitarian Icon of the Year.

The was during a one day Conferenc which was organized by the apex youth and Student bodies in the country as they celebrate the African Youth Day with the theme: “PAN Africanism; Youths the Panacea to achieving the Africa we want”,

The event was graced by youths and students all around the world as major decisions were being made to have youths adequately involved in the helm of affairs and government policies.

Edoh, earlier, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs while giving his address at the Epoch-making event stated that the only way Africans and the Blacks can have the African continent of their desire is by engaging the youths, stressing that the youths are the economy life wire of any nation.

He further called on the Nigerian government to see reasons why there should be an open-door policy for the youths.

He said, ” The idea that peoples of African descent have common interests and should be unified. Historically, Pan-Africanism has often taken the shape of a political or cultural movement. There are many varieties of Pan-Africanism. In its narrowest political manifestation, Pan-Africanists envision a unified African nation where all people of the African diaspora can live. (African diaspora refers to the long-term historical process by which people of African descent have been scattered from their ancestral homelands to other parts of the world.) In more general terms, Pan-Africanism is the sentiment that people of African descent have a great deal in common, a fact that deserves notice and even celebration.

“Here is the History of Pan-Africanist intellectuals. Pan-Africanist ideas first began to circulate in the mid-19th century in the United States, led by Africans from the Western Hemisphere. The most important early Pan-Africanists were Martin Delany and Alexander Crummel, both African Americans, and Edward Blyden, a West Indian.

“Those early voices for Pan-Africanism emphasized the commonalities between Africans and Black people in the United States. Delany, who believed that Black people could not prosper alongside whites, advocated the idea that African Americans should separate from the United States and establish their own nation. Crummel and Blyden, both contemporaries of Delany, thought that Africa was the best place for that new nation. Motivated by Christian missionary zeal, the two believed that Africans in the New World should return to their homelands and convert and civilize the inhabitants there.

In a chat with journalists, he called on the Nigerian youths to remain security conscious and be actively involved in politics and electoral processes, stressing on it as the only way the youths can clinch political offices.

He pointed out that if the elections’ is credibile, free and fair then achievement is based on the youths, however he assured the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Buhari’s administration of his role in organizing youths nationwide to behave accordingly as required by the law and according to the rules of the political activities.

He said, ” You have to join in the process. No one will call and give you any political office, there are principles to have all these things work, and to get it right, you need to do the right thing as required. You must serve before served.

” I am one of the Youth National leaders in this country both at home and in the Diaspora. We appreciate President Buhari, we appreciate INEC. We appreciate them both for the assurance and the trust we have in them going by their sundry assurances as to the transparent, free and fair election come 2023 that they have promised Nigerians.

“We the youth leaders are happy, and we are ready to make this happen. Just as I have been doing all these while, organizing youths all across the country for peace dialogues, I will continue, and I assure Buhari and INEC that the youths would not engage themselves in any form of electoral violence. He said.