Fatai Adesokan Sai Rahman’s Colloquium Emphasises “Importance of Youths, Women in Nigeria’s Economic Development, Democracy”(PHOTOS).

Fatai Adesokan Sai Rahman’s Colloquium Emphasises “Importance of Youths, Women in Nigeria’s Economic Development, Democracy”(PHOTOS).

The Colloquium of the renown Public Affairs Analyst and Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress(APC), Mr Azeez Fatai Adesokan’s which took place today, Sunday, January 16 at Fresh FM Radio auditorium, Music House, Challenge, in Ibadan, has emphasized “importance of youths and women in Nigeria’s economic development and democracy”.

The keynote speaker, Professor Babatunde Oni in his presentation stated that, “Youth make up over 65% of the population in Nigeria while the population of the women amount to over 101 million as at 2020 statistics.

He furthered,”Youth was defined to be people aged between 19 and 39 years according African studies. Youth spends 60% to 80% of their lives doing business, adverts and having fun on social media. In the recently concluded BBN show, the show recorded over 1B total vote. Imagine if such strength is charged towards political participation in Nigeria.

“Entertainment shows that youth are actually informed and only chose to do what pleases them. The stakeholders need to look into the cause of this and provide a necessary remedy. Compared to the entertainment and social media presence, the youth contributes less than 2% to national politics.

“In 2018, Nigeria passed not too young to run limiting the ages of political participation by 5 years in each of the offices.

“Recently, women have occupied spaces in labour force in Nigeria. Tanzania and Ethiopia have women as presidents.

Prof Oni enumerated challenges as follows,”The challenges of youth when its comes down to their participation in national politics are but not limited to; Religious and sociocultural beliefs, Financial inability, Godfatherism, Frustration among others.

The University Don, Oni rendered solutions to the challenges as follows,”Constitutionalism … not too young to run should be incorporated into the constitution.

“There should paradigm shift as well. Focus should be shifted to necessary areas that will bring about development to the society.

Member, House of Representatives(MHR), Honourable Tolu Akande Sadipe while speaking at the colloquium, opined that gender discrimination is a bane militating against the development of the country.

Sadipe opens her remarks with a question posed to the men,“when you see a woman, what do you see? Obviously, you see a play thing. If that mentality does not change, gender discrimination will continue to be a problem in our society”. She, concurrently, asked women what they see when looking at themselves.

“Without equivocation, I agree that Nigeria is very difficult, extremely difficult. However, Nigeria youth can achieve whatever they set their hearts on despite the economic downturn”, Sadipe encouraged.

She furthered,”One of the problems we have in this country is cultural dogmatic belief. She cited “an example of a man born to family. His father had 22 children when he was alive and now that he is the head, he plans to overtake his father by having more than 22 children. Now, ask this man, what level of education will this man give these children? If the people of this nation can not stop some cultural beliefs, there will be no changes at all”, Sadipe emphasized.

“It is the world that assigns duties and functions to gender. The only divinely assigned duty is child bearing which is exclusive to women – all other things, either of the genders can do.

While concluding, Sadipe stated that,”The youth need to be proactive in dealing with things, and that can not be done unless we change our orientation and dogmatic belief. Restrategizing is very important. Mind you, to rule others, you have to rule yourselves first.

“Globally, women are populous than men. The female gender deserves exactly the opportunity the male gender enjoys. Norway, Denmark, Iceland where women are political leaders, the country performs better. It can be seen in those countries’ COVID-19 cases, they have few mortality rates compared to other nations.

In his own remark, the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the 2019 governorship election in Oyo state and former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN), Chief Adebayo Adelabu Penkelemesi charged government, at all strata, to be proactive if government wants a robust economy. He maintained that having a robust economy is having a progressive and well thinking youth.

Adelabu maintained that,”The basic education; primary and secondary education should be exclusively taken over by the government and it should be totally free for all citizens. It is better to rule citizens who can read and write than rule uneducated ones”.

He said,”Similarly, health sector should be easily accessible to all and sundry at no cost. If these two things are ensured, there will be a significant paradigm shift in the country and of course, development will take place.

In his closing remarks, Adelabu reiterated that,”having a changed Nigeria bothers on having a well-informed citizens.

Sen. Ayo Adeseun while speaking as the Chairman of the occasion, emphasised the importance of holding such colloquium across the nation as it will further reorientate Nigerians in general and the youth in particular.

Adeseun cited examples of people who came into limelight at a very young age,and he said one of such is Chief Bola Ige at age 27.

Senator Adeseun further alleged that civil servants contribute to the poor state of things in the country. “Nothing happens in this country without passing through the civil servants.

He charged the organizer to consider the theme of the next colloquium as “Corruption; The Roles of Civil Servants”.

Among prominent personalities at the events are Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC), Prof Adeolu Akande, former Communication Minister, Barr Adebayo Shittu, Oyo South Senatorial Hopeful, Hon. Bimbo Adekanmbi, Media Magnate, Mr Damola Layade, APC Deputy National Youth Leader, Hon. Afeez Bolaji Repete, former Speaker, and a serving Member of Oyo-State House of Assembly, Hon.Asimiyu Alarape among several others.