Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora, has called on Africa to connect with its diaspora in order to move the continent forward.
Dabiri-Erewa made the call at ‘The Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) and African Students Association Africa Week 2017 at the Columbia University, New York.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that MIPAD is a unique global list that identifies 200 high achievers, under the age of 40, of African descent in public and private sectors worldwide.
Dabiri-Erewa said: “It’s important that Africans in the diaspora connect with Africans at home; that collaboration is very important and that’s where the world is moving toward now.
“Africans in Africa connecting with Africans in the diaspora is very critical and you have a lot of successful Africans in the diaspora.
“If China and India are investing in Africa, why can’t the Africans in the diaspora. And this is beginning to happen and it is quite encouraging.
“There’s a lot in there for Africans in diaspora; there’s a lot that can be benefitted with that collaboration.
“The future of the African continent will get better if Africans at home and the Africans in the diaspora actually work together.
“And that is beginning to happen as we see in this function here in New York. So, we need to encourage it and support it,” the presidential aide said.
She said for the first time, Nigeria was at the forefront of hosting the ‘Door of Return’ at Badagry as against the ‘point of no return’ to forge the collaboration.
“They (Africans) were taken away as slaves through the point of no return and so in Badagry, Lagos, we symbolically opened ‘a door of return’ for our brothers and sisters in the diaspora.
“And you could see the emotions flowing; it was emotional, it was spiritual, it was cultural, it was beautiful. They (diaspora) want to have a connection with Africa.
“They are not saying they are packing back but they want to be going back and forth. So, it’s important to open that door and make it seamless for them and a lot of them are already finding ways to invest in Nigeria.
“For instance, take the issue of solar energy, renewable energy, they are looking into it. In fact, they want to build what is called ‘sustainable communities’ in Nigeria.
“So, it was very successful; it’s going to be annual and it’s going to be not just in Nigeria but different countries of the world that will be doing the same thing.
“So, we are glad that we are able to successfully put together the first ‘door of return’ ceremony that took place in Badagry,” she said.
The AU Permanent Representative to the U.S., Dr Arikana Chihombori-Quao, regretted the many challenges confronting the continent but said that many positive things were beginning to happen on the continent.
She, therefore, cautioned against generalised statements about Africa, challenging the diaspora Afrians to, like the Chinese, Indians and Jews in the diaspora, come together and make Africa great.
Kamil Olufowobi, founder of MIPAD, a global civil society initiative in support of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent, said he was passionate about repairing the broken bridge between Africa and its diaspora.
Olufowobi said he was bringing together young people of African descent under the age of 40 to get involved by connecting 200 most influential people of African descent – 100 of them inside Africa and 100 outside Africa.
“We are connecting the diaspora with the Africa that is so far away from them; we connect them with their counterparts who are doing the same thing that they are doing in the diaspora.
“So, it already gives a further ground for collaboration, for cross-pollination of ideas toward the upliftment of Africa,” he said.
“For far too long in Africa, we continue to let the worst of us rule the rest of us. So we have to flip that script where we get the best of us to rule the rest of us.
“How do we do that? By proliferating excellence and that is why MIPAD is born; we identify excellence, we connect excellence together and we reproduce and develop even more excellence.