from OKORO CHINEDU in Lagos, Nigeria
Nigeria Bureau
LAGOS, (CAJ News) – SOME youths in Nigeria have called on Western nations to remove economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.
The youth, under the aegis of the Not Too Young to Perform (NTYTP), noted that young people were bearing the heavy burden of the bilateral restrictions that have bedeviled the Southern African country for two decades.
The youth group has called on the heads of government in Nigeria and other African countries to pressure the United Nations, United States of America, and other international diplomatic systems and influential countries to bring to an end these sanctions.
By this call, NTYTP joins the All-Africa Students Union (AASU) and other African youths to empathise with peers in Zimbabwe, who are worst affected by the sanctions.
“Anything that negatively impacts one youth anywhere in Africa, is negatively impacting youths everywhere in the continent and any other part of the world,” James Ezema, NTYTP Executive Coordinator/National President, said.
“The psychological impact of sanctions on today’s generation of Zimbabweans, as a result of slowed progress and inhibited economic recovery, can only be imagined,” he added.
NTYP agreed that while sanctions by some international systems target human rights abusers and those who undermine democratic processes or facilitate corruption, prolonged military sanctions could, on the other hand, further expose the most vulnerable people in Zimbabwe to the adverse effects of insecurity.
“While we call on the Zimbabwean government to continue to strive to take steps towards addressing the root causes of Zimbabwe’s ills, including corrupt elite and their abuse of the country’s institutions for their personal gains, we commend the President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa administration for ongoing reforms,” Ezema said.
He believes the Zimbabwean government’s reforms were sufficient evidence that Mnangagwa was fully committed to ensuring that all factors that were undermining Zimbabwe’s democratic processes and institutions were speedily removed.
“And as sanctions are not intended to be permanent but to incentivise behavioural changes, we believe that the over two decades of sanctions have achieved that purpose in Zimbabwe and needs immediate review.”
Western nations imposed sanctions on the government of then president, Robert Mugabe (now deceased), citing human rights violations.
The Southern African country maintains this was retribution to the land reform programmes that saw the seizure of land from the minority colonisers.
– CAJ News