Following President
Muhammadu Buhari's call on Nigerian youths to "be the
change they want to see", at the 2015 International Youth
Day, with this year’s theme “Youth Civic Engagement”.
A group known as Nasfat
Youth has taken up the challenge to
visit youths living in some of the suburb areas of Lagos state, to see the various efforts made by these
youths to positively engage themselves despite the challenges that
confront them.
After
a painstaking research, Secretary of the group, Fatai Olayemi (Amir),
revealed what the group observed, and what inspired him to take up such project.
According to Mr. Olayemi, the engagement and participation of youth is
essential to achieve meaningful and sustainable developments. Yet, the
opportunities for youth to engage politically, economically and socially are
either low or non-existent, especially in developing countries. Although there
has been increased programming, policy and attention directed on youth civic
engagement by governments, United Nations entities, regional and multilateral organizations,
CSOs, youth and researchers, much still needs to be done if we must achieve any
significant development.
This is evident in the response received from a recent
research we conducted at Ijora Badia community, a large slum in Apapa/Iganmu Local Council
Development Area, to ascertain the
level of Youth civil
engagement.
There
are indications that insecurity, which results in cult killings among the
youth, poor infrastructural uplift, indiscriminate and early sexual exposure,
teenage pregnancy and early marriage, poor hygiene and living conditions,
ironically, lack of access to portable drinking water is also a major challenge
that confronts a community, that is neighbour to the Lagos
State Water Corporation Building, Ijora.
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| Ijora community |
Majority
of the youths living in this area engage in menial job to earn ends meet.
Despite it’s proximity to Nigeria’s leading Ports, Apapa Ports, and few kilometers away from the bustling
and affluent Victoria Island, Ikoyi, and Lagos Island, Ijora Badia seems
to have lost touch with the real world, laments one of the youths.
YOUTHS
TAKING UP THE CHALLENGE TO EFFECT CHANGE IN IJORA BADIA COMMUNITY:
To
help address some of these challenges, and as part of their civil
responsibility to the society, some youth came together to find ways to effectively sensitize young
people on the need to shun violence.
One of such groups is
the ‘Signature Initiative’ formed by a youth leader in the
community. The organization holds an annual event, called
the Responsibility Carnival, where they bring in artiste to entertain and
motivate the youths to live responsibly.
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| Some members of the Signature Initiative group |
To
support their efforts, the youths have called on the Lagos State Government to put in
place, proper security in the community; as they attribute the increased
fighting and killings to “loose security”. They equally clamored for
increased government involvement through youth focused
programmes to channel their energy towards
productivity, would make the community stable a bit and would make investors
coming.
Construction
of low cost houses for families, this is because the wooden houses have
led to reported cases of fire outbreaks, the sad part being that once there is
fire on one of the houses, other houses are automatically
affected because the house are built very close to each other.
Mr. Fatai added
that empowering youths through financial support schemes to boost innovation
and policy development, collaborating with entrepreneurial and capacity building
development organisations like Fate Foundation, to build personal development skills and
entrepreneurial proficiency of the Youth, for multiplier effect on jobs &
wealth creation in Nigerian economy, are some of the ways government and private
groups can promote civic engagement among the youths in Nigerian communities.
Mr. Olayemi said.
We
hope relevant authorities and well meaning Nigerians heeds this clarion
call for change, and are effectively involved.
