Liberia presidential election
Political veteran Joseph Boakai was on Monday declared the winner of Liberia’s presidential election, beating incumbent George Weah, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) said after completing the ballot count.
Boakai won with 50.64 per cent of the vote, against 49.36 per cent of the vote for former international football star Weah, Davidetta Browne Lansanah, president of the commission, told reporters.
Boakai won with only a 20,567-vote margin.
Weah, however, already conceded defeat on Friday evening, based on the results of more than 99.98 per cent of the polling stations.
However, the commission head said that on Friday it had received two appeals from Weah’s party concerning the conduct of the election in Nimba County.
The commission has 30 days to investigate and reach a decision, she said.
theme; “Making Special Drawing Rights work for the people,” said it was disturbing that most of the countries’ revenues are now being channeled to debt servicing obligations.
Ugolor, who was represented by the Deputy Director of ANEEJ, Mr Leo Atakpu,
said, “Statistics from the DMO shows that Nigeria’s public debt stood at N87,379,401.75 trillion as at June 30 2023 and in the same vein, Ghana’s public debt stock rose to 569.3 billion cedis ($49.7 billion) at the end of April, 2023, according to figures obtained from the Bank of Ghana. Sierra Leone’s debt is classified as being at high risk of debt distress, largely due to heightened solvency and liquidity risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For us in Civil Society, this is quite disturbing because most of our countries’ revenues are now being channeled to debt servicing obligations at the peril of basic social services, climate and other development exigencies.
“The debt crisis imperils the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals and achievement of the Paris Climate Agreement in West Africa. This becomes even more worrisome when viewed against the backdrop that Nigeria remains the world poverty capital as designated by the World Poverty Clock report of 2023.
“It means debt will drive more Nigerians and indeed, West Africans into extreme and multidimensional poverty if urgent and drastic steps are not taken by our governments and the international community.”
He said the conference would review the utilization of SDRs in Nigeria and Ghana “as well as take a deep dive into current debates around SDR reallocation to countries in most need such as Nigeria and Ghana without having to exacerbate the debt crisis.”
