Why Ideas Are Important in Africa

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Research paper 1

Social Theory

March 2, 2016

Ejiroghene Akpalikoko

KAJSA HALLBERG ADU

March 2, 2016

Ejiroghene Akpalikoko

KAJSA HALLBERG ADU

Your Excellencies, Heads of State, the Government, leading officials of the African Union Commission, Ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I’d like to thank the governor of Lagos State and other district officials for making this event possible and I hope to see more of these happening in the years to come, as emerging leaders rise up to take the mantle.

Africa, ironically being one of the continents endowed with rich natural resources is also a very poor continent in terms of growth and sustainability. Over the past thirty to forty years, from the days of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah, Martin Luther King Jnr and various other legends who set a path for the development projects in Africa till now, the continent has reached only a minimum level of evolution. It is an undeniable fact that a lot more progress could have been achieved with the given time period but other factors have come to disrupt this process. Corruption, lack of proper initiatives and institutions, constant reliance on foreign goods are some of the many reasons why Africa has not moved past and conquered the challenge faced by our African legends. However, someway somehow, there is always a solution to every problem. Hence I’d like to introduce my argument that ideas are relevant and would serve as an important role in the development of Africa, and in the next eight minutes, I expect everyone to have a different view on how ideas contribute a great deal to Africa’s development.

Over the years, Africa has been through series of depression and long-term suffering. The Sustainable Development goals, set up by the United Nations Development Programme was introduced with the aim of securing an absolute eradication of hunger and poverty by 2030, where standard of living is high, and per-capita income...