NIGERIA is going head-to-head against 23 other United Nations (UN) member-states today as the election for members of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child holds at the headquarters of the world body in New York.
Prof. Peter Onyekwere Ebigbo, a Clinical Psychologist, former deputy Vice Chancellor the University of Nigeria, Enugu campus and winner of the Nigeria National Order of Merit (NNOM), is Nigeria’s candidate in the election candidates from around the world are vying for nine open seats on the committee.
The 18-member committee is the UN body charged with the responsibility of monitoring the implementation of the international Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which several UN member states are signatories and state parties to the convention.
Ebigbo, who arrived in New York last week has been campaigning around the UN diplomatic community under the auspices of the Nigerian Permanent Mission to the UN.
The Nigerian Mission under the leadership of Permanent Representative and Ambassador, Prof. U. Joy Ogwu, also announced a major campaign reception billed for yesterday afternoon at Nigeria House to sell Prof. Ebigbo’s candidacy to the UN diplomatic community.
The Nigerian Mission elections and campaign officer, Mr. Lawrence Olufemi Obisakin, is also coordinating the campaign effort for the Nigerian candidate in what many at the UN concede as a tough election. For instance, unlike with previous practice where the UN African Group would normally agree on consensus candidates, in today’s election of the 24 countries seeking the nine vacant seats 11 are from Africa.
African countries presenting candidates for the election apart from Nigeria are Ghana, Algeria, Tunisia, Cameroun, Burkina Fasso and Madagascar, being countries that submitted their nominations for the election before the deadline in August. However four additional African countries turned in their nominations late, but are also listed as interested in today’s election. They are Sudan, Egypt, Zimbabwe and Congo-DRC.
Other UN member states presenting candidates outside of Africa are Saudi Arabia, Haiti, Spain, Monaco, Suriname, Hungary, Georgia, Lithuania, and Sri Lanka. The others which submitted their nominations late are the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Dominican Republic and Macedonia.
However, Obisakin said at the weekend that while the competition for the seat was intense for this particular election, the Nigerian candidate, Ebigbo, was one of the most eminent candidates for the job.
Ebigbo, an experienced Child Rights Advocate is the Regional President of the African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN) until March this year and it was under his leadership that the body won the African Union Commission’s Champion of Children Award in 2007.
Ebigbo organised the first conference on Child Abuse and Neglect in Africa in 1986 and as ANPPCAN leader in Nigeria, he has run Child Rights monitoring centres in Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, Onitsha, Ibadan and Lagos since 1991. The Nigerian candidate, who had his university education in Germany, is married to a German wife who is a recipient of Germany’s highest award of Federal Order of the Merit cross.
By last Friday, Obisakin and Ebigbo were moving from one campaign event to another in different offices of UN member-states, passing out fliers of the Nigerian candidate and engaging diplomats on UN grounds and lounges on the quality of his candidature.
To clinch the four-year membership of the committee, UN member states who are interested in the election are required to present candidates with “high moral standing and competence in the field covered by the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” according to the UN rules.
Candidates to be formally presented by their countries are however to serve in their personal capacities once elected as is the case for other UN bodies like the International Court of Justice and International Law Commission where Nigerians have actively served.
Source:http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment