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Minister charges youth to take advantage of 3-days Entrepreneurship training.
My heart radiates with happiness to see the number of participants under the various youth groups in Ogbomoso and environs that have turned up here today to take part in this capacity building. It is a testimony to the fact that there is a yearning among our youth to upskill themselves when the opportunity is presented to them. Furthermore, the number of participants here is an indication that the youth realize they need to acquire the added advantage, which is the additional skills, different from their original courses of study, to thrive in a world that has become increasingly more digital, entrepreneurship oriented and competitive.
It is in response to these realities that the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, which I oversee, has introduced the DEEL initiative, which is Digital Skills acquisition, Internship, Employability, and Leadership. Youth from across the country are already benefitting from pieces of a training run in conjunction with partners like IMB, Microsoft, and Google.
The Federal Government has taken the additional step of equipping youth to start and own their own businesses with the establishment of the Nigeria Youth Investment Fund (NYIF). It is a ringfenced N75 billion naira for bankable youth ideas and businesses at a 5% interest rate with a moratorium of up to 12 months.
It is my desire to see the youth here in Ogbomoso, in Oyo state, and all over Nigeria key into these initiatives and turn themselves into employers of labor, wealth creators, and entrepreneurs. I, therefore, want you to take advantage of this three-day training to join those that will grow Nigeria’s economy to an enviable position in the years ahead.
I urge you to listen and learn for the duration of the training and thereafter. Use this crucial training as a launchpad that will ensure that you are able to set up small scale enterprise that can grow and expand into world brands.
No man that doesn’t have a story, the story of some of you have begun today in terms of owning your personal small scale business. That is why we are urging you to try and take the opportunities that have been brought to your doorsteps seriously. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a step.
You have already taken the bold steps already to have come and participated in this capacity building. I said this because some youth are still out there who doubt that this program is not true. They didn’t come to participate not because they are not interested but because they fail to believe in the reality of life.
It is my priority as the Minister of Youth development in this country to ensure that we empower the youth and equip you with the necessary facilities that would bring about betterment to your future.
This is one of the reasons why we have set up this program. And the first sets of youth to benefit from this program are the youth of this ancient city of Ogbomoso.
While wishing you a fruitful and successful training ahead, I wish to urge you all once again to take advantage of this important training. I know you are intelligent, I know you are innovative and hardworking, you are just waiting for this opportunity to come and the opportunity is right before you, kindly take advantage of it. It is my dream that you all would excel in the field you have chosen in this 3-days capacity building program, either in the Fishery, Piggery, or the confectionaries. I am very optimistic that some of you will start telling your stories of your journey to stardom soon.
Thank you all.
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ELECTING A POPE: THE BURDEN OF MAKING CHOICES
By Olubunmi Mayaki
“Habemus papam!” which in the English Language means, “We have a Pope.” was pronounced by Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, a French Catholic prelate, His Eminence, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti from the iconic loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican City on Thursday 8 May 2025 after white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. Those Latin words proclaimed to a tensed global audience the result of the election of a new Supreme Pontiff after the death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) on 21 April 2025 at the age of 88 years.
The Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Cardinal Robert Prevost (Pope Leo XIV) emerged as primus inter pares (first among equals) from the cardinals after undergoing detailed election rituals, which have been the process of selecting the head of the 2000-year-old Catholic Church for centuries.
A papal conclave, the process by which a new Pope is selected, was held consisting of one hundred and thirty-three (133) College of Cardinals, drawn from different parts of the world converged at St. Peter’s Basilica for a public mass before heading to the Sistine Chapel to cast their votes to elect the 267th Pope. During the mass, part of the choir renditions reminded voters to remember their last day when they would stand before God in judgment to render their stewardship on earth, which is to prevent them from rigging the voting process. At the behest of the senior cardinal deacon, voting formalities were read to the electors, which included- oath-taking- “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one whom I believe should be elected according to God”. Other processes are banning phones, jamming calls, forbidding speaking or contacting any of the candidates, voting rounds, spiritual pauses etc.
Looking at the voting process, one should be curious about how an election to pick a leader for a religious body could be so systematic and attract such global attention. It is a sharp contrast to elections where political leaders are chosen. Even in the so-called advanced democracies, we have seen electoral flaws and a dearth of political leaders. States are finding it difficult to pick genuine statesmen, giving rise to hegemonic leaders. These political imperia ums are emerging and stoking crises in their domain. Fallouts of elections are no longer favourable due to unpopular candidates forced on citizens.
Africa, as a case study, shows that no matter the rules put in place by the continent’s leaders, our election processes have been fraught with rigging, corruption and waste. In most cases, the leaders who set the rules are the violators of the same process. Governments conspire with electoral bodies to truncate election processes at will. Such political brigandage has destroyed the progress of the continent.
Closing this view, I hope that African leaders will take a cue from the Catholic Church’s election process to reinvigorate and rejig the continent’s faltering political process for the good of its people. Better still; political scholars from the continent can study the Catholic model. The common features of elections in most parts of Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, are riddled with vote rigging, violence, human rights abuse, repression, barbarism, crises, untold hardship, and sometimes, outright war. This is the bane of Africa’s development.
The burden of making good political choices should ordinarily rest on citizens. However, politicians have hijacked this process for selfish reasons. It has given birth to bad leaders. If we fail to get it right, what we see is what we get. That is the story of the world politics!
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