CEADER Convened African Institute on Leadership, Political Participation and Technology

Written By OLUFUNMILAYO OBADOFIN 

“Leadership in Africa is about who is in control of resources, the army and who is popular. It has little to do with the qualities or characteristics a leader should process” Roberts Mboizi, a young social worker in Uganda shares this while discussing the reasons for bad leadership and poor governance in Africa at the first African Institute on Leadership, Political Participation and Technology.

Between April 5-8, (CEADER) a Nigeria based organisation with a background of over a decade of work track delivering human rights intervention (feminists) and advocating for gender equality brought together 45 young leaders who have demonstrated interest in advancing democratic and inclusive leadership n Africa. The participants were selected from eight African countries; Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Republic of Benin, Senegal and Egypt.
The institute was organised in partnership with Women Learning Partnership (WLP), a US based feminist organisation to increase the participation of young people, in the political and leadership space in Africa.

Photo Credit: The African Courier

According to Joy Ngwakwe, the Executive Director of CEADER, the training is needed and timely to strengthen the capacity of young people in Africa to effectively engage in democratic governance in a sustainable manner.

In welcoming the participants, Allison Horowski – Executive Director of Women’s Learning Partnership mentioned that the Institute constitutes other youth leaders across different continents globally.

Tomisin Akinade, the program officer said the training sessions were simultaneously facilitated in French and English to accommodate the language divergence of the participants who were selected from both Francophone and Anglophone countries.

Topics at the sessions span across effective media management, creating and sustaining campaigns through the use of technology and enhancing democratic and ethical politics and decision making among other topics.

These sessions were facilitated by three Nigerian WLP global facilitators; which include the ED of CEADER, Annie Adidu-Lawal, Chibogu Obinwa as well as the Executive Director of Women Technology Empowerment Center (W.TEC).
During the training, Tofunmi George, a social entrepreneur who participated in the training shared her thoughts on how leadership can be improved across borders.
‘Basically, we need proper political ethics just like every other profession has ethics, politics should have its own ethics. I don’t think the solution is new political parties or getting more people into governance, we need an ethical political structure because one thing I have noticed in Nigeria, is that when youths manage to get in, they get recycled in the system.

Another participant, who represented the Rotary social group, added that it is important for youth to translate social media presence into physical presence to improve their youth participation in the governance process.

At the end of the training participants shared their next plan of action with the organiser and facilitators.

Mariam Bourouah, a young gender activist from Morocco expressed her gratitude to the conveners at the end of the training, while adding that she had been especially intrigued by the participatory nature of the training that allowed her to exchange her views with other participants.