“I try to apply this quote to my life, deeds, relationships and work ethic.”
Kennedy Ekezie-Joseph is only 19 years old, but he has far taller dreams and greater passions.
A final year student of the Department of Philosophy, University of Calabar, Kennedy is the Founder of the Calabar Youth Council for Women’s Rights, a non-profit that carries out passionate advocacy for women’s rights in Nigeria and globally, especially in the areas of female genital mutilation, domestic abuse, forced child marriage and access to education for the girl-child.
Kennedy is also a debater who has competed and won many laurels at various platforms worldwide, including the Harvard University. He won the Best Debater in Nigeria in 2015, and in 2017, he was in New York, United States of America, having been selected as a 2017 Global Teen Leader alongside 29 other teens from 16 countries of the world by Nile Rogers’s charity, the We Are Family Foundation.
As a debate champion, he has spoken in six countries on three continents and at 26 universities.
As women’s rights advocate, how did he find his passion, and what was the motivation? He says: “It is a build-up of several subtle and overt experiences. I am from, was born, and live in Nigeria – a country which is characterised by violence of so many sorts both at the micro and macro scales. I realised that most times, the government and citizens pay heed only to overt forms of violence like terrorism, or kidnap of the Chibok girls, and so on.
“However, subtle micro-aggressions and violence against women form the underlying core of how an entire demographic (women: who make up 49 per cent of the population) are treated. I needed to balance the discourse by creating awareness about gender-based violence in its diverse forms, and beyond that, advocating to bolster the rights of women in society.”
Kennedy’s Calabar Youth Council for Women’s Rights (CYCWR) targets rural community members to educate them on the dangers of gender-based violence, and to change their perspectives through intervention programmes.
He says he does what he does because he believes “in the ethical underpinnings of social justice and the power of a culture of peace and equality as requisites for the growth of the individual, and society at large.”
Two months after joining the University of Calabar Debate Society in his freshman year, Kennedy was selected as one of the four students to represent UNILCAL at the Impact Africa Universities Debate Championship in Accra, Ghana.
The team won the competition. He also represented the university at the Pan-African Universities Debate Championship in South Africa, and later the World Universities Debate Championship in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – all at the age of 16!
He also competed at the All-Nigeria Universities Debate Championship and emerged as the Best Debater in Nigeria – just one year after joining UNICAL.
Ekezie-Joseph competed at the Harvard University and defeated teams from Yale University, University of North Carolina and University College, Berkeley, among other laurels.
But Kennedy’s success as a debater did not come on a silver platter. He once had to train at least 20 hours every week.
Ekezie-Joseph is not just passionate about women’s rights and debating; he is also ambitious and looks forward to leading Nigeria at the highest level possible.
He told an interviewer in 2017, “I aspire to be the youngest president of Nigeria, with a desire to strengthen Nigeria’s foreign policy and implement policies that will enable Nigeria to achieve its full potential in the coming years.”
Dreams come true, especially for people with very strong drives, who refuse to let go.
For his passionate advocacy for women’s rights; for his passion to fight for the cause of the girl-child, and generally his ascendancy as a young man doing great things, Kennedy Ekezie-Joseph is getting noticed in all the high places.
He will later this month, together with two other Nigerians – Isaac Ezirim and Hauwa Ojeifo – join 237 others to receive the Queen Elizabeth’s Young Leaders Award at the Buckingham Palace.
The Queen’s Young Leaders Award, which is in its fourth and final year, celebrates outstanding young people ages 18 to 29 from the Commonwealth countries who are working to improve lives across diverse range of issues – health, education, gender equality and so on.
Two Nigerians (Nasir Yammama and Bukola Bolarinwa) were among the recipients of the prestigious award last year.
and then