EPE News

Epe Youth Indifference To Education Could Hamper Town’s Growth

Published

4 years ago

Dec 17, 2020.

By Babatunde Kaka

Chairman of Eredo local council development area, Hon. Adeniyi Saliu, has expressed concern over the state of education and unemployment rate in Epe division.

Saliu, while delivering a keynote address at the Rotary Club of Epe Metropolitan Investiture and Awards ceremony, bemoaned indifference of Epe youth to education.

At the ceremony themed “The Role of Youths in Nation Building”, Saliu said the sorry state of the economy is an impediment to youth involvement in governance and nation building.

Eko Hot Blog reports that Adeniyi stated that leadership and the economy are like two sides of a coin that can never be separated. He noted that working population of societies all over the world, youth, in particular, are educated.

Using Epe Division as a case study and stressing the importance of education in attaining leadership positions, he charged youths in Epe Division to sit up in their quest to acquire literacy as the springing up of various industries would favour non-indigenes rather than locals in terms of job placement in the nearest future.

“You can not divorce the state of the economy from leadership because leadership is everything. So our first problem is economy and Economy and Leadership are together because it is when a leader takes a bad decision in government that they have da irect impact on the economy and polity. Today, a lot of the youths that we have do not even seek education. If you take Epe Division ,for instance, I don’t know how many of us that have shown interest in our educational system in the last 10 years. In Epe Division today, take your survey, how many of our children proceed when they finish secondary schools? It is less than 10% yearly.

” There is no economy in the world, there is no country where the vast majority of the population is uneducated. It can’t happen because it is those working population, those that are supposed to build our roads, build infrastructure, that have not gone to school to learn anything. That is why today, as politicians, the things we do are empowerment because there are no people, no students, no youths that qualify for important positions”

He said numerous job opportunities and prospects springing up in Epe would be taken up by outsiders as youth in the town are not educationally prepared to grab this opportunities.

“Let me tell you what Epe Division is suffering today. We are going to have Dangote Refinery, Deep Seaport, Alaro City, Lekki Free Trade Zone, what you will find today is that our leaders are only trying to engage in Financial Compensation because they are not thinking about the future of the youths. Very soon, positions are going to become available and nobody would be grounded or qualified enough to take them up because those organizations are in our community, we are entitled to a quota system that should normally apply to us. In Ilara, there is St. Augustine University, How many Indigene are there as Lecturers and Senior Lecturers? They are not there, we don’thave them. And we have our youths, a lot of them are out of school “.

Exploitative Politics was also one of the challenges with youths in nation building. He noted that the perception of youths presently as regard leadership is such that is hinged on getting job opportunities and financial breakthrough rather than call to serve humanity. He further cleared the doubt of youths who do not partake in voting during elections with the belief that their votes don’t count. Such an attitude he said was the strategy of the political class to scare youths form getting involved in the voting process.

“The culture of exploitative politics does not allow us to generally appreciate leadership. Average Youths in Epe, Lagos State and even Nigeria see politics as job opportunity, an opportunity to gain employment and fend for themselves. They have built a relationship between politics and economic empowerment. They think that the only way that they can have their financial breakthrough is to join politics. So, they have misunderstood the concept. That will change the moment the youths begin to see politics s a call to service as against employment opportunity. If you don’t see that, we are going to have a rop of youths that are generally irresponsible and unable to offer the kind of leadership that the society requires from them.

“Politicians want you to think your votes don’t count, so when you have such mindset, you will not come to vote and when you don’t vote, you are not part of that process, then you don’t have a right to complain. Before you say your vote does not count, have you voted? Vote, stay there, ensure that they count. It is a process, you don’t just vote and go home. At certain levels, you can be an avid voter, you can be a canvasser, you can contest for positions, you can be an election activist. To see that votes count, go to where the collation centre is, make sure that things are properly done “, he said.

See Photos: