3rd September, 2016
Some Nigerians have appealed to world leaders attending the forthcoming G20 summit in China to consider the development of Africa as a priority in the interest of global peace.
They made the appeal in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Saturday.
Sunday Adebayo, who runs a business centre in Abuja, stressed that “Africa has been left behind for too long”
Adebayo, however, attributed some of the current global challenges to the long-time neglect of Africa.
He suggested that the world leaders should come together and place Africa in the front burner, adding that the world stood to gain from the development of Africa.
Felicia Agunbiade, a public analyst, who also spoke with NAN maintained that “the G20 summit presents another opportunity for the world leaders to correct the mistake of the past”
According to her, the global peace will continue to be threatened if a particular continent is not at par with others.
She,however, wondered why Africa should suffer under development for this long, and
blamed African leaders for not meeting up with the expectations of Africans.
“I want to say that African leaders should share major part of the blame for not doing enough to develop Africa.
On current economic challenges in Nigeria, Agubiade said that it should addressed because if it was not adequately checked it would spread to some African countries.
She held that most African leaders have failed the continent, adding that diseases, hunger, war, insurgency and other challenges in Africa toady could be traced to poor leadership.
The public analyst also urged the G20 members to take deliberate action with a view to addressing some of these challenges facing Africa in the interest of global peace.
Habiba Audu, who also spoke with NAN, believed that Africa deserves more than what it was getting now.
Audu identified previous colonial experience of most African countries as a major setback for Africa.
“I believe our colonial experiences also contributed to our under development,” she said.
G20 summit which was founded in 1999 began as a forum for finance ministers and central bank governors who met once a year to discuss international economic issues.
The summit which comprises of 20 countries has only South Africa as a member from Africa.
This year’s summit will take place in China from Sept 4 to Sept 5.