RAYMOND OZOJI reports
Youths in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State have unanimously decided to take their destinies in their own hands to emancipate themselves from the outright neglect and abandonment of political office holders in the council area.
This was the crux of the matter at the maiden Ihiala youth summit held at Kojack Hotel Okija, where youngsters in their numbers bemoaned the fact that those at the corridors of power have abandoned and forgotten them completely leaving them to mourn their fate in the most excruciating manner.
The youths who blamed political leaders for the blight cast on the council area, maintained that most of the people occupying elective offices in Ihiala Local Government Area would not be reelected because they believe that the crop of politicians do not represent the generality of the masses but their own individual selfish interests.
The summit therefore insisted that Ihiala youths must be freed from intimidations, suppressions, subjugations, unemployment and a host of other perennial problems militating against youth development in Ihiala Local Government Area.
Hence the unanimous resolution for the creation of a Youth Development Commission in Ihiala Local Government Authority which provides for a compulsory allocation in the council's budget for youth empowerment and youth development programmes to meaningfully engage the youths and curb negative vices amongst them.
Some of the resource persons who spoke to this journalist, maintained that the Ihiala youth summit was indeed a way out of the quagmire youths found themselves on account of the i-don't-care attitudes of political leaders in the council area.
Dr. Uzoma Charles Dioha, a legal practitioner, who was of the opinion that Ihiala youths feel left out in the scheme of things, noted that the motion for the establishment of a commission strictly for youth affairs was a necessity and should be accorded the attention it deserves.
Dioha emphasized that it was not about insecurity in Ihiala but about the youths whom he said are frustrated. He observed also that the set of people perpetrating evil in Ihiala are from Ihiala as evident in some persons that have been arrested by security agencies who have been identified as indigenes of Ihiala Local Government Area.
That insecurity in the council area was borne out of the frustrations amongst young persons even as he pointed out that the youth summit was organized inorder to fashion out the best way to move the youths of Ihiala Local Government Area forward to curb insecurity.
Another resource person, Hon. Divine Onyekachi Ngobidi, who hails from Okija in Ihiala Local Government Area, said youths have insisted that a commission should be created strictly for youth affairs and that such commission would be guided by the political leaders, economic leaders , opinion molders as well as traditional rulers in the local government inorder to bridge the gap between the youths and the elites.
Ngobidi equally posited that the council legislature should move a motion that whatever budget being passed in the council should capture 25% derivation for youth development in Ihiala Local Government Area.
Meanwhile the Chairman Planning Committee of the maiden Ihiala Youth Summit Barr. Chukwunedum Darlington, said they decided to summon a youth summit to have an interaction between the ASATU youth wing, Ohaneze-Ndigbo youth wing, the National Youth Council Youth Wing and Ihiala Local Government Students' Union nationwide to interact and salvage the decaying and deplorable situation of the system.
Barr. Darlington was cognisant that the youths stated that they have been abandoned completely but he corrected the impression saying that they have not been neglected totally but the government of Anambra State, according to him, has created One Youth Two Skills which he said a lot of Ihiala youths are beneficiaries.
Although he pointed out that the One Youth Two Skills Development Programme was not enough, he called on the Chairman of Ihiala Local Government, the House members representing Ihiala 1 and 2 and the House of Representatives member representing Ihiala Federal Constituency to come to the aid of youths in Ihiala Local Government and look for channels in which they can alleviate the sufferings of the youths.
Also Engr. Uchechukwu Augustine Okennaka who is the youth leader of Uli community as well as the current youth Mayor of ASATU youth wing, stated that the summit was convened to enable youths interact with their leaders on the way forward for the youths of Ihiala local government area.
He said they didn't vote for their leaders only for them to be abandoned; that there is a dire need for government elected officers and stakeholders of Ihiala to come to aid of young people through youth empowerment programmes.
He said Ihiala is suffering so many social vices like insecurity and some others which according to him, is not unconnected to unemployment; that if the youths are engaged meaningfully, there would be absolutely no reason why they would engage in vices inimical and detrimental to their lives and general well-being, adding that the way forward is a sustainable means of empowering the youths in Ihiala local government area.
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