Today, we cannot celebrate the annual United Nations' International Day of the Girl Child with joy, because of the murder of innocent girls in Israel and Gaza since Saturday, October 7, 2023 when the Hamas terrorists attacked Israel in broad daylight and murdered hundreds of innocent people, including children and women.
The video of one of the Israeli girls murdered by Hamas is what Nigerians Report Online is showing today, because we cannot celebrate when fathers and mothers are mourning the murder of their innocent daughters.
The theme of the International Day of the Girl 2023 is "Invest in Girls' Rights: Our Leadership, Our Well-being."
This can only be possible if we can guarantee the safety and security of girls in the world.
Girls are still being kidnapped, raped and held as captives by the Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists in northern Nigeria and by ISIS in the Middle East.
We support every effort to save all girls in location of conflicts; in Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Nigeria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, the Americas and the rest of the world.
Let us pray for all the girls who cannot celebrate the annual International Day of the Girl Child today.
Every conflict in history has been caused by Rebellion against rationality.
Humans have a preference for irrationality.
That's why the world has never known even one year of peace.
There is always a preventable war going on somewhere.
In the absence of noble ethos
The city burns in the violence of chaos.
The on going invasion of Ukraine by Russia is a rebellion against rationality.
The world is full of unreasonable people.
- Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,
Author of "The Prophet Lied", "Scarlet Tears of London", "Diary of the Memory Keeper", "Children of Heaven" and other books distributed by Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other booksellers. #people#london#amazon#books#Ukraine#Russia#war#conflict#rebellion#rationality#noble#ethos#heaven#children#prophet#history#chaos#world
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STATEMENT BY HIS EXCELLENCY, MUHAMMADU BUHARI, PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, AT THE GENERAL DEBATE OF THE 77TH SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS @UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY, WEDNESDAY 21ST SEPTEMBER, 2022
#UNGA #UNGA77 #NigeriaAtUNGA#PMBatUNGA
Mr. President,
Heads of State and Government,
Mr. Secretary-General,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Mr. President,
On behalf of the Government and people of Nigeria, I congratulate you on your well-deserved election as President of #UNGA77. I assure you of the full support and cooperation of the Nigerian delegation during your tenure. I commend your predecessor, H.E Abdullah Shahid for the many remarkable achievements of the General Assembly under his leadership during these challenging times.
May I also congratulate the Secretary-General, Mr. @antonioguterres on his ceaseless and untiring efforts to promote peace, security and development, very much in line with his exalted role.
Mr. President, The first time I could have addressed this August Assembly was in 1984, when I was the Military Head of State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Thirty-one years later, I had the great privilege to personally address the Assembly in 2015, as the democratically-elected President of my country. As I approach the end of my second and final four-year term, I am reminded of how much has changed in Nigeria, in Africa, and in the world, and yet, how some challenges remain.
We are now more severely tested by these enduring and new global challenges, paramount among which are conflicts increasingly being driven by non-state actors, proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons, terrorism, violent extremism, malignant use of technology, climate change, irregular migration, and disparities in opportunities for improved standards of living.
Despite the challenging international environment, the United Nations has proved that it can be strong when the will of its members is harnessed for positive collective action. The guiding principle of this extra-ordinary institution is the promotion of peace and security, development and human rights.
Latest in a chain of events challenging these principles is the Ukraine conflict which has already created strains that are perhaps unprecedented for a generation.Such a conflict will have adverse consequences for us all, hindering our capacity to work together to resolve conflicts elsewhere, especially in Africa, the Middle-East and Asia.
Indeed, the ongoing war in Ukraine is making it more difficult to tackle the perennial issues that feature each year in the deliberations of this Assembly, such as nuclear disarmament, the right of the Rohingya refugees to return to their homes in Myanmar, and the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for statehood and reduction of inequalities within and amongst nations.
The danger of escalation of the war in Ukraine further justifies Nigeria’s resolute calls for a nuclear-free world and a universal Arms Trade Treaty, which are also necessary measures to prevent global human disasters. In this regards we must find quick means to reach consensus on the Nuclear non-proliferation Treaty with related commitments by nuclear weapon states.
I remain firmly convinced that the challenges that have come so sharply into focus in recent years and months emphasize the call by #Nigeria and many other Member-States for the reform of the Security Council and other @UN Agencies.
We need more effective and representative structures to meet today’s demands that have since outgrown a system designed for the very different world that prevailed at its foundation in 1945. CHANGE IS LONG OVERDUE.
Mr. President, This is the first meeting we are having here in New York without the restrictions that characterised the last three years. The COVID-19 pandemic ripped across National borders like a toxic whirlwind, leaving in its wake a legacy of pain and loss.
Happily, we also witnessed an incredible level of innovation and creativity from those who devised treatments & vaccines. These laudable achievements were underpinned by partnerships and international cooperation.
We have also seen the bravery, care and endurance of health professionals at every corner of the globe.I am happy to note that in Nigeria, our healthcare agencies were able to form effective local management and engaged international partnerships with multinational initiatives like COVAX and private groups like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation @gatesfoundation
These efforts helped mitigate the impact of the pandemic and we were mercifully spared the images
of overwhelmed hospitals, overworked healthcare personnel and high mortality which sadly we saw elsewhere.With #COVID19, we saw very clearly how states tried to meet the challenge of a threat that could not be contained within national borders.
The results were mixed; but at its best, cooperation among stakeholders was outstanding. It facilitated solutions that saved countless lives and eased the huge burden of human suffering.That same theme of unilateralism and the promotion of national interest competing with the common cause in the face of an existential threat has been our recurring experience in recent times.
In every address I have delivered to this august Assembly, I have dwelt on the issue of climate change, especially as it fuels conflicts and complicates food security. Climate change reduces opportunity and prosperity which, in Africa, Latin America and some parts of Asia, also contributes to transnational organized crimes.
As part of Nigeria’s efforts at achieving our Global Net-zero aspiration, the current Administration last year adopted a National Climate Change Strategy that aims to deliver climate change mitigation in a sustainable manner.The measures we took at the national level also require climate justice. Africa & other developing nations produce only a small proportion of green-house gas emissions, compared to industrial economies.
Yet, we are the hardest hit by the consequences of climate change as we see in the sustained droughts in Somalia and floods of unprecedented severity in Pakistan. These and other climate-related occurrences are now sadly becoming widely commonplace in the developing world. We are, in effect, literally paying the price for policies that others pursue. This needs to change.
At the #COP26 in Glasgow last year, I did say that Nigeria was not asking for permission to make the same mistakes that others have made in creating the climate emergency. Fortunately, we now know what we can do to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis and the related energy challenge. As a first step, we must all commit to releasing the financing and the technology to create a stable and affordable framework for energy transition.
Development Finance Institutions must prioritise de-risking energy projects to improve access of renew-able projects to credit facilities. There should be no countries “left behind” in this equation.Rocketing energy costs worldwide are, in part, the product of conflict and supply disruptions to Europe and the Americas.
Yet, we are all paying the price. It is, therefore, our expectation that this UNGA 77 & the upcoming COP 27 will help galvanise the political will required to drive action towards the fulfilment of the various existing climate change initiatives.
Another feature of the last decade has been the growing partnership between states and increasingly influential non-state actors.There was a time when the most important event at this Assembly was speech by the world’s most powerful leaders. Now a Tweet or Instagram post by an influencer on social or environmental issues may have greater impact.
Technology offers us nearly limitless opportunities and sometimes runs ahead of the imagination of regulators and legislators. At its best, social media helps strengthen the foundations of our society and our common values.At its worst, it is a corrosive digital version of the mob, bristling with intolerance and division.
When I began my tenure as President in 2015, distinctions were drawn between the experience of poorer countries and those apparently better able to manage the avalanche of unfiltered information.
Nigeria has had many unsavoury experiences with hate speech and divisive disinformation. Increasingly, we also see that many countries face the same challenge. Clearly, data also know no borders.
In confronting these challenges, we must also come together to defend freedom of speech, while upholding other values that we cherish.We must continue to work for a common standard that balances rights with responsibilities to keep the most vulnerable from harm and help strengthen and enrich communities.
Efforts to protect communities from the scourge of disinformation and misinformation must also be matched with efforts to reduce inequalities and restore hope to our poorer and most vulnerable of our communities as a means to stem the many socio-economic conflict drivers with which we are faced.
In spite of our efforts, humanitarian crises will continue to ravage some of our communities. Nigeria, therefore, implores our global partners to do more to complement our endeavours.Indeed, the multifaceted challenges facing most developing countries have placed a debilitating chokehold on their fiscal space.
This equally calls for the need to address the burden of unsustainable external debt by a global commit-ment to the expansion and extension of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative to countries facing fiscal and liquidity challenges as well as outright cancellation for countries facing the most severe challenges.
Mr. President, Your Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Democracy is an idea that crosses time and borders.Certainly democracy does have its limitations. The wheels of democracy turn slowly. It can demand compromises that dilute decisions.Sometimes, it bends too much to special interests that exercise influence, not always for the general good, in a manner disproportionate to their numbers.
But it has been my experience that a democratic culture provides a Government with the legitimacy it needs to deliver positive change. In Nigeria, not only have we worked to strengthen our democracy, but we have supported it and promoted the Rule of Law in our sub-region.
In The Gambia, we helped guarantee the first democratic transition since independence. In Guinea-Bissau we stood by the democratically-elected Government when it faced mutiny.And in the Republic of Chad, following the tragic death of its President, the late Idris Deby Itno in the battlefield, we joined forces with its other neighbours & Int'l partners to stabilize the country & encourage the peaceful transition to democracy,a process which is ongoing.
We believe in the sanctity of constitutional term limits and we have steadfastly adhered to it in Nigeria. We have seen the corrosive impact on values when leaders elsewhere seek to change the rules to stay on in power.Indeed, we now are preparing for general elections in Nigeria next February. At the 78th UNGA, there will be a new face at this podium speaking for Nigeria.
Ours is a vast country strengthened by its diversity and its common values of hard work, enduring faith and a sense of community. We have invested heavily to strengthen our framework for free and fair elections.I thank our partners for all the support that they have provided our election institutions.
As President, I have set the goal that one of the enduring legacies I would like to leave is to entrench a process of free, fair and transparent and credible elections through which Nigerians elect leaders of their choice.Mr. President, The multiple challenges that face us are truly interconnected and urgent, and your choice of this Session's theme, “A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges” is apt.
In keeping with our obligations as Member States of this noble Organisation, we all must do our utmost to work with you toward resolving them. In this regard, I reiterate my Delegation's full & resolute cooperation.
Let me convey my final reflection from this famous podium.We live in extraordinary times with interdependent challenges but enormous opportunities. The pace of change can seem bewildering, with sometimes a palpable and unsettling sense of uncertainty about our future.
But if my years in public service have taught me anything, it is that we must keep faith with those values that endure. These include, but are not limited to, such values as justice, honour, integrity, ceaseless endeavour, and partnership within and between nations.
Our strongest moments have always been when we remain true to the basic principles of tolerance, community, and abiding commitment to peace and goodwill towards all.
Film at Lincoln Center presents King Vidor, a retrospective of the Academy Award®-winning director’s work, from August 5–14.
Tickets are now on sale! Save 20% on membership and get $5 off all tickets year-round.
A fascinating and prolific figure whose career bridged the silent and sound eras of Hollywood, King Vidor completed over 50 feature films during a career that spanned nearly seven decades. Vidor’s cinema, rich with idiosyncratic takes on well-trod Hollywood forms, arced across a wide range of genres, from the Western to the musical to the maternal melodrama (late in his career, he even produced a philosophical primer on metaphysics). These movies also made a considerable impression on the critics-turned-directors of Cahiers du Cinéma and the French New Wave, namely Luc Moullet and Jean-Luc Godard. Yet, for all his on-screen achievements, Vidor is seldom given his due as one of the studio system’s enduringly great auteurs. Join us at FLC as we seek to change that with a long-awaited retrospective, a survey of his vast body of work that highlights his most celebrated pictures alongside undersung efforts.
Notable films include but are not limited to: Vidor’s most acclaimed film, The Big Parade, often considered a model for numerous future war movies; Vidor’s adaptation of Olive Higgins Prouty’s 1923 novel Stella Dallas, featuring Barbara Stanwyck as of one of the most indelible heroines of Hollywood’s Golden Age; Comrade X, part spy film, part screwball satire starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr, which prophetically anticipated the invasion of Russia and Ukraine by Germany less than a year after its release; and Duel in the Sun, a Western staged as a grand, Freudian frenzy.
As a special treat for filmgoers and Vidor fans alike, there will be live musical accompaniment to select screenings of four silent films in the retrospective: La Bohème, The Crowd, The Patsy, and Show People, performed by Donald Sosin, well-known for creating and performing music for silent films.
The Co-Creation Hub of Nigeria, Association for Democratic Reforms (India), Fundacion Ciudadano Inteligente (Chile), Mideast Youth (Bahrain), Centre UA (Ukraine), and Open Knowledge Foundation (UK) have been selected for the Omidyar Network’s $3million grant for advancing government transparency and accountability.
The following is the detailed news release.
Omidyar Network Supports Technology-Centered Organizations Seeking to Empower Citizens Across Six Countries Announcement coincides with establishment of global hub for Government Transparency in London
PR Newswire
LONDON and REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 15, 2011
LONDON and REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Omidyar Network announced today its intent to grant up to $3M to six leading organizations focused on advancing government transparency and accountability. The organizations are: Association for Democratic Reforms (India), Co-Creation Hub (Nigeria), Fundacion Ciudadano Inteligente (Chile), Mideast Youth (Bahrain), Centre UA (Ukraine), and Open Knowledge Foundation (UK).
Through its Government Transparency initiative, Omidyar Network invests in organizations that use technology and media platforms to provide access to information and tools necessary for citizens to participate in the governing process and hold governments to account. Over the last two years, the firm has invested over $40M in transparency efforts across the globe, including organizations such as mySociety in the United Kingdom, Ushahidi in Kenya, Janaagraha in India and the Sunlight Foundation in the United States.
Omidyar Network intends to provide an operating grant of up to $750k to Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), an organization that seeks to improve governance and strengthen India's democracy through electoral and political reforms. ADR discloses the backgrounds of parliament and state assembly candidates so that voters have the knowledge to make informed decisions. The nonprofit also works for greater transparency and accountability in elections and in political parties, and on raising awareness on changes needed in the electoral and political system. For more information: www.adrindia.org.
The Co-Creation Hub in Lagos, Nigeria will receive up to $200k in support of creating a shared work space where stakeholders from multiple walks of Nigerian life come together to collaboratively create tech-based solutions that address social challenges facing Nigerian society. It will be Nigeria's first multi-functional, multi-purpose space dedicated to the creation of social technology ventures. The Hub will accommodate 50-60 tech start-ups at one time and will provide pre-incubation services including: advice, training, mentorship and access to funding through a network of local and international partners. The Hub will also serve as a place for stakeholders to meet, brainstorm, share ideas and collaborate through partnership events, meet-ups, focus groups, hackathons, competitions and talks by guest speakers. For more information: http://www.cchubnigeria.com/
Omidyar Network intends to support Fundacion Ciudadano Inteligente with a grant up to $500k over three years. The Chilean nonprofit creates technology platforms, including websites and mobile applications, to provide citizens access to easy-to-use, graphical information about their government. Citizens can learn about what issues will be debated in parliament, access the profiles and voting records of elected officials and learn about the demographic make up of the legislature. Future plans include creating online tools to learn about money's influence in politics and government, as well as expansion to other Latin America countries. For more information: http://www.votainteligente.cl/
Mideast Youth will receive a grant up to $600k to expand its multi-media content and further develop CrowdVoice, a white-label platform used to build communities around social topics, such as human rights, religious freedom, tolerance, and free speech. Mideast Youth provides a unique platform in the Middle East for the discussion of issues affecting young people, and in the past two years has developed a number of websites to bring attention to marginalized groups in the region. The core sites provide a forum for discussion around a range of cultural and rights issues and are updated daily by more than 300 regular citizen journalists who contribute to the sites. For more information: www.mideastyouth.com.
Omidyar Network will grant Centre UA $335k over two years in support of its initiative, New Citizen. New Citizen is a coalition of more than 50 Ukrainian civil society organizations seeking to secure a greater voice for citizen participation in the political process and holding government to account. Omidyar Network support will enable the coalition to build out its technology platforms, enable education and outreach and expand the program with the Ukraine. For more information: http://newcitizen.org.ua.
The Open Knowledge Foundation of the United Kingdom will receive a grant of up to $750k over three years. The U.K. nonprofit builds tools and communities to promote open access to information that can be used, reused and redistributed freely. The Open Knowledge Foundation works to increase knowledge about open data, designs innovative visualization tools that enable citizens to access and better interpret data, and builds dataset catalogues to demonstrate to both citizens and government alike the benefits of making data open, free and accessible. Grant proceeds will be used to: expand Open Knowledge Foundation's key financial transparency project, openspending.org; sustain and build working groups on open data; and establish chapters in additional countries. For more information: http://okfn.org.
In a separate announcement, Omidyar Network Investment Partner Steven King stated the philanthropic investment firm this week opened a global office in the Shoreditch area of London. The office will serve as the philanthropic investment firm's headquarters for its work in Europe as well as serve as the global hub for its Government Transparency initiative. He also announced Omidyar Network will begin to expand the geographic focus of its Government Transparency practice to include: Poland, Turkey and Ukraine in Europe; Brazil and Mexico in Latin America; Egypt in the Middle East; and Indonesia and the Philippines in Southeast Asia. The initiative will continue to focus efforts in the United States, India, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa in sub-Saharan Africa and the United Kingdom. [See press release: Omidyar Network Expands European Presence with Opening of London Office].
About Omidyar Network
Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic and social change. To date, Omidyar Network has committed nearly $450 million to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual participation across multiple investment areas, including microfinance, entrepreneurship, property rights, transparency and accountability, consumer Internet and mobile. To learn more about Omidyar Network, please visit www.omidyar.com.
SOURCE Omidyar Network
CONTACT: Greg Pershall of Omidyar Network, +1-360-607-8901, gpershall@omidyar.com
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