Dapo Oyewole at TEDxIkoyi: Development as Dignity
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Dapo Oyewole at TedxIkoyi
CP-Africa is currently running a 6 part feature on the talks given at the recently held TEDxIkoyi in Lagos. Check out the first feature by Reverend Nzamujo here.
Dapo Oyewole at TEDxIkoyi: Development as Dignity
Policy adviser Dapo Oyewole recalls how as a child he overheard adults describing Nigeria as “the third world”. He finds this difficult to accept, and refutes the idea that advanced infrastructure alone is the yardstick for measuring societal development. He emphasizes that development of a society is incomplete if it does not offer dignity to its citizens.
Dapo Oyewole is a World Fellow at Yale University and the Executive Director of the Centre for African Policy & Peace Strategy (CAPPS), an independent London and Lagos-based policy think tank focused on governance, security and development issues in Africa. He has functioned as a Consultant and Adviser to several international agencies and multilateral organizations, has contributed to several publications and is a regular commentator and analyst on African and international affairs for international news agencies including CNN, BBC, the Financial Times and Huffington Post. Below is his TEDxIkoyi talk titled “Development as Dignity.”
Check out an excerpt from Dapo Oyewole’s recent post for the Huffington Post on President Obama’s election
President-Elect Barack Obama: Expanding the Boundaries of Possibility
“For Africa and its leadership, we need to ask ourselves serious questions. First, if the President-elect of the world’s most powerful and wealthiest nation is a direct descendant of an African and bears an African name, then what excuse do we have today as to why we cannot produce the same calibre leaders within Africa, who can lead our own countries into greater, faster and more sustainable growth, stability and development? Secondly, we need to ask, if Barack Obama with all his education, knowledge, skills and passion had been a ‘young’ forty-seven year old from a modest background and a minority ethnic group in an African country, would he have been given a chance to become President, as he was in America? What was the fate of Raila Odinga in Kenya or Morgan Tsvangrai in Zimbabwe in the last two hotly contested African elections which could have facilitated a generational shift in the leadership of these countries? If Obama had been an Africa-based politician liked Odinga or Tsvangrai would he have been given a chance? Would he have been elected an African President?” See full article here
