Expert talk
Details
Although culturally quite different, Nigeria and Germany have politically many things in common. Like Germany, Nigeria is a Federal Republic and therefore follows the decentralized system.
Klaus-Jürgen Hedrich, former Deputy Minister of BMZ, will enter into an exchange of experiences with key actors of the nascent Nigerian democracy and consult them from the historical experience of Germany and Europe. For this purpose he visits our partner parliaments, the State Houses of Assembly, in Cross River, Ogun, Lagos and Plateau State as well as the Governors of Cross River and Ogun.
A success for our cooperation with these state parliaments constituted the election of two former Speakers of these State Houses of Assembly for the House of Representatives last year. With Hedrich they discuss amongst others the role of the national parliaments for the stabilization of the young democracy.
In terms of security issues, Nigeria is still confronting big challenges. With almost daily terror attacks on one side and attacks by militants in the oil rich Niger Delta on the other side, the country is approaching in fast steps a “failed state”, or rather is it already in the view of important experts. Klaus-Jürgen Hedrich analyses with the "Nigerian Army College of Logistics" in Lagos the contribution of the armed forces for stabilizing the national unity and internal security.
He will further discuss the importance of economic development for the stability and the internal peace with the Minister of the National Planning Commission, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman. Dialogues with the Chargé d'Affaires of the German Embassy in Abuja and the German Consul General in Lagos will contribute the German perspective of the situation. Meetings with selected journalists and KAS partners round up the visit with topics like religion conflict and women rights.