..As Mohammed Tasks Africa On Conflicts

The UN Deputy Secretary-General, Ms Amina Mohammed, has challenged Nigeria and African countries to learn from the lessons of the Boko Haram insurgency and other violent conflicts ravaging the continent.
Mohammed, who made the remarks at a “special honorary dinner” organised in her honour by  Nigerian women at the Nigeria House in New York, expressed regrets  that the gains of peace were becoming easily lost on the continent.
“We know today that often in Africa, we very quickly might get the gains of peace as we did in South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia,  but they are so quickly lost because we do not invest in the thereafter.
“So the lessons learnt is that as we recover from Boko Haram in the Northeast of Nigeria;  let us not forget that we need investment 24-seven in large amount for many years to come.
“This is because the destruction there is not just goods and lives; it is living in the lives of the girls and women who have come back from their horrors and that will take a generation to get back,” she said.
She said that the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, had given her some clear-cut responsibilities geared toward  making the world better for humanity.
Mohammed said: “The Secretary-General of the United Nations is committed to gender parity, he started it in his office and he hopes to do that by the end of his term.
“He has committed to seeing an end to sexual exploitation and abuse and it starts with the United Nations itself.
“But he has also given me a mandate to implement the 2030 agenda, the 17 SDGs, to do the climate agenda, to address migration, to take the leadership in the reform of the United Nations system and also to look into the humanitarian issues that are needed if we are to recover from the conflicts that we come out of.’’
Mohammed  said she accepted her new role so as to serve humanity with Guterres,  adding  ”it really is an honour to have got this, it is humbling, it is a privilege, there are so many expectations of the secretary-general and myself.’’
“When I asked him why he took the job, he said it was a moral imperative.