Former Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Laolu Akande, has sharply criticized the focus on the Samoa Agreement, describing it as a distraction from Nigeria’s pressing issues. Speaking on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday, Akande shared his views on the controversial deal and its implications.<\/p>\n
On the Samoa Agreement, Akande stated, “The agreement is meant to be something that the European Union is trying to get people in Africa and the Caribbeans together in one place for them to give some kind of aid. Many of these promises are never kept. How many times have we had promises of aid from all these agencies that are basically what young Nigerians will call ‘audio policies’.”<\/p>\n
Akande highlighted the inefficacy of foreign aid, noting that much of it is spent on foreign consultants who often lack experience and understanding of local contexts. He emphasized the need for Nigeria to focus on more substantial and beneficial engagements, such as trade and investment, rather than relying on unfulfilled aid promises. “We need to get ourselves more informed about these things and not get excited. What we should be advocating for more is investment and doing trade together. This Samoa deal is a complete distraction,” he asserted.<\/p>\n
He also raised concerns about the potential inclusion of controversial clauses in the agreement, particularly those related to LGBTQ rights. “We’re so worried about the LGBTQ. They’re trying to sneak that into our system. The truth of the matter is that it is already in our system,” Akande noted. However, he clarified that even if such clauses were signed by the federal government, they would have no effect until enacted as Nigerian law. “It’s the reason I said this is just a distraction, a storm in a teacup. There are more important things that we need to get excited about. We are losing focus. If we must call the government out, let’s call them out on corruption.”<\/p>\n
Akande further elaborated on the involvement of key ministries and organizations in reviewing the agreement. “We have two Ministers – Minister of Information and Minister of Budget and Planning, and then the NBA [Nigerian Bar Association]. And the NBA came out and said when this thing came out, the Minister of Budget and National Planning actually referred the document to us to review it, and we reviewed it and didn’t see anything objectionable especially regarding this fear of the LGBTQ. It’s just a complete distraction,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Laolu Akande, has sharply criticized the focus on the Samoa Agreement, describing it as a distraction from Nigeria’s pressing issues. Speaking on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday, Akande shared his views on the controversial deal and its implications. On the Samoa Agreement, Akande […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":37198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38542,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38541\/revisions\/38542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}