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Youths urged to shun vices and engage in community development

August 16, 2020

43 6 minutes read

District 404B2 Nigeria Leo President, Leo Giwa A. Boluwatife; members with special guests and speakers in a group picture shortly after a Symposium organised by Leos under the district as part of its activities to mark this year’ International Youths Day in Lagos recently.

Nigerian youths from all walks of life have been urged to shun vices capable of portraying them in bad light and use their strength and talent for humanitarian services that will impact their communities positively.

District 404B2 Nigeria Leo President, Leo Giwa Oyomide Boluwatife, made the call while speaking with our correspondent at a symposium organized by Leo Clubs under the District in commemoration of this year’s International Youth Day at the weekend in Lagos.

Leo is the youth wing of Lions Clubs International.

He said the essence of the symposium was in commemoration of this year’s International Youth Day, celebrated worldwide.

“As youths in the community, we have come around to celebrate it in our own way, to have a symposium to train youths in community development, on community service because we believe as youths we are the leaders of tomorrow, and if we are leaders, we must portray what we are by doing so much for ourselves as well as impacting our communities.

The theme of this year’s International Youths Day celebration is “Youths Engagement for Global Action.” It is also a platform to sensitize the youths that we need to act instead of continuing to stay behind and feel that our voices are not heard. It is the right time we start making our voices heard even when we are not given the chance; if we continue to speak out or we continue to take bold steps in the right direction, I believe in no distance time we will get to where we want to get to.

“Youths who engage in negative vices should chance, it is not a good thing to portray as youths. As youths we are known for our strength, if we are known for our strength, we should portray our strength in a positive way and bring out light that we are because a community or even the nation cannot grow without the youths, the voice of the youths is always heard and recognized so every youth as we celebrate international youth day wherever they are should take global action for community development, should shun violence, should shun drug abuse, should shun every vices that will portray the youths in bad image.

Diestrict 404B2 Nigeria Leo President, Leo Giwa A. Boluwatife; members with special guests and speakers in a group picture shortly after a Symposium organised by Leos under the district as part of its activities to mark this year’ International Youths Day in Lagos recently.

“This service year, we are committed to leadership training, we are committed to unity, and we are committed to building good image when it comes to youth affairs. We are committed to harmony, and we are trying to build strategy that is why our theme for this year is “Building Stability for Service.” Even though the pandemic has affected our plans, but we still have to do more by stabilizing our service and reaching out to more. Basically, we have so much to do for ourselves and we have so much to do in terms of impacting our communities.

Also speaking on the theme:“Youths Engagement for Global Action,” Architect Olalekan Bayewunmi, called on Nigerian youths to be proud of their country wherever they find themselves irrespective of what people from other countries are saying about them, provided what they are doing is legit.

He also called on government to play their roles well by putting the right structures in place to encourage the youths to take the right steps and shun vices that are inimical their progress and the reputation of the country.

“As a Nigerian youth wherever you find yourself you should be proud to flaunt that your green passport and tell them I’m a Nigerian irrespective of their discrimination, irrespective of their prejudice against you, in as much as you don’t have any criminal record and what you are doing is legit. I always tell people that I will not be a second class citizen wherever I go.

“Every country is a reflection of its educational system. Now, we have an academic system that is going down the ladder every year. Look at the WASCE certificate: be it from WAEC of NECO, about ten or fifteen years now, we keep on having less than 40 per cent success rate in Mathematics and English. If you have been following that trend, it’s been coming down, what has the government done to tackle this? They have not done anything. Association of Staff Union of University (ASUU) has been on strike even before the Coronavirus pandemic, they have been on strike over six months now. What has the Federal Government done? Nothing.

“A youth is someone that is very energetic, one with very active mind. When that energy is not being harnessed rightly, they channel it to so many things: either positive or negative. Proper mentorship and enabling environment for entrepreneurship will help our youths to channel their energy to something good.
“When you lock the campus for about six months and the students who supposed to be in the campus and those who have already graduated many years ago are there idle, without anything doing.

“Two days ago, Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released a data that the unemployment rate in Nigeria has risen to about 37% and in a population of about 200 million people, having such a high unemployment rate that is about a population of some West African countries, if you are not harnessing your human resources rightly, they will try it into some other things. Some are lucky to channel theirs into sport, but is government encouraging them? No. Some are trying to channel theirs to enterprise, is governments encouraging them? No. You have all kind of taxes and levies coming here and there for a business you are trying to get a footing and government is not encouraging you.

“So if they can get someone that introduces them to ‘yahoo yahoo’ where they can get dollars without paying anything, on the face value, it looks lucrative even though it is not good for the entire system. I’m not trying to encourage them but government has to play its role. If government plays its role well by creating a structure where we can plough in our very vibrant human resources into and lucky for us we have a very large youth population and if we have structures for them, they will be fully engaged, the crime will reduce and the country will be better for it. The vices we are experiencing in the country today are because government is not harnessing our human resources well,” he said.

L-R: Olalekan Bdayewunmi; Rotr. Windapo Adedeji, speakers at the event; District 404B2 Leo President, Leo Giwa A. Boluwatife; CA8 Africa Panelist, Leo Olajide Ogunsola at the District International Youth Day Symposium in Lagos recently.

In his contribution, the Global Service Director, Leo Lanre Salam, while speaking on the activities of Leo, said since the beginning of the present service year, they have embarked on several community service programme aimed at impacting their communities.

He said Leo as a youth wing of the Lions Clubs International; they are doing everything possible in support of the five global activities including Vision (Sight); Environment; Diabetes; Padiatric Cancer and Hunger.

Leo Lanre who said they are a lot of opportunities and benefits derivable in being a member of Leo, called on youths to join and become part of the largest service organization in the world.

Leo District 404B2 Nigeria was birthed in 2014/2015 and began its leadership with 5 regions… We are now 6 regions that cut across South Western States of Nigeria with over 32 Clubs.