The assertion by President Akufo-Addo that the inaction of the United Nation’s Security Council, which continues to contemplate whether and how to intervene in terrorist attacks in West Africa and the Sahel, fuels the spread of instability across Africa is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Friday.
The Graphic reports that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the inaction of the United Nation (UN) Security Council, which continues to contemplate whether and how to intervene in terrorist attacks in West Africa and the Sahel, fuels the spread of instability across Africa.
He said while it could be admitted that the political context for the Security Council’s involvement was complex and the operating environment dangerous, the earlier a collective action was taken to support efforts to halt the incessant killing and annihilation of communities, the better.
President Akufo-Addo said this when he presided over the High-Level Debate of the UN Security Council at the council hall in the UN building in New York yesterday.
It was on the theme: “Counter-terrorism in Africa – An imperative for peace, security and development”.
The President, who last addressed the council as Ghana’s Foreign Minister 16 years ago, also used the occasion to reiterate his call on the council to revisit the issue of the reform of the UN system, especially the Security Council.
He said that should be done on the basis of the African Common Position on UN Reform, as enunciated in the Ezulwini Consensus, if, indeed, the authority of the council, which in recent times appeared to have been devalued because of its old-fashioned structure, was to be restored.
President Akufo-Addo, recounting the cold-blooded treatment, including the massacre of innocent persons, by terrorists, cited, for example, how, with a population of some 300 million people, the Sahel region had accounted for the highest incidents of recorded terrorist attacks between January and June this year.
That, he explained, had resulted in about 5,412 deaths across Africa.
The newspaper says that the Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu has moved the motion on vote of censure against the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta.
However, the Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin has raised a preliminary objection against the motion.
This has been followed with responses from both sides.
After the responses from various sides, the Speaker will give a ruling on the preliminary objection raised by the Majority that considers the motion as unfair and unjust and impugns criminality to the Finance Minister.
The Ghanaian Times reports that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has called for the reform of the Security Council of the United Nations, describing the current structure as an injustice against African countries.
Speaking at an event organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, yesterday in New York, President Akufo-Addo noted that the Security Council was constrained by its anachronistic structure and methods, which undermine efforts to tackle contemporary challenges in the most effective manner.
“The conversations around reforms, which have been going on for three decades without an end in sight, must, therefore, yield real changes to the structures of the Council to make it innovative in its approach,” he said.
According to him, the current structure of the UN Security Council represented a long-standing injustice toward the countries of Africa, and the time is long overdue in addressing it.
“It is obvious that the contemporary world has moved on significantly from the post-1945 world, which gave rise to the birth of the United Nations and the structure of the Security Council. The world of 2022, and even less that of 2050, is not the world of 1945. The crisis of the multilateral financial institutions and the United Nations system, which were born from the rubble of the Second World War, is a deep crisis,” President Akufo-Addo said.
He continued, “It will continue until a fair system is put in place; a system that reflects the new balances, no longer based on who lost or won the Second World War, but on the major contemporary and future balances. These balances must take into account new realities such as demographic dynamics or access to resources, in a context of scarcity.”
In its current state, the President noted that the Security Council is finding it increasingly difficult to propagate the rule of law and democratic principles.
President Akufo-Addo was confident that it would only be through the reforms that were suggested in the African Common Position that would enable the Security Council to be effective in addressing the challenges of our time.
“And it is only through its effectiveness at maintaining international peace and security that the Council can remain credible, legitimate and relevant,” he added.
The newspaper says that about 10 percent of the Ghanaian population is diabetic, president of the National Diabetes Association-Ghana (NDAG), Elizabeth Esi Denyoh, has said.
According to her, the prevalence of the disease continued to soar in the country and it was important that citizens take seriously the practice of regularly testing to know their sugar levels for prompt management and care. Some market women checking their health status during the launch
Mrs Denyoh was speaking at a diabetes screening exercise organised by the Association at the Tema Station in Accra yesterday ahead of this year’s World Diabetes Day (WDD).
The exercise is the first leg of a strategy rolled out by NDAG to screen at least 30,000 people of diabetes across all major markets in the country.
Marked every November 14, to coincide with the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, who co-discovered insulin along with Charles Best in 1922, the WDD is celebrated to draw attention to multi-stakeholder efforts to tackling diabetes as a public health issue.
The president of NDAG, who is the chairperson of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), West Africa, expressed concern over the fact that majority of Ghanaians especially the youth were diabetic but were oblivious of it contributing to the high disease burden and mortality rate in the country.
“Between 2020 and now, diabetes has killed more people than COVID-19 but there is a fund for COVID-19, there are policies and guidelines for treatment and management yet diabetes, which is the third leading chronic non-communicable disease in the country hasn’t got.
Diabetes care needs attention because it has been neglected over the years and the government must intervene to reduce the disease prevalence,” she stated.
Mrs Denyoh mentioned the need for the government to implement policies that allow for citizens to stay physically active like “creating bicycle lanes, clearing pedestrian walkways, directing institutions like the Ghana Education Service among others to enforce physical education periods.”
GIK/APA