Oyo Speaker urges Senate, Reps to empower youths, women politically

Speaker of Oyo State House of Assembly, Edward Adebo Ogundoyin, has urged the Senate and the House of Representatives to make conscious efforts towards empowering Nigerian youths and women politically.

Ogundoyin, while speaking yesterday in Abuja at the 25th Nigerian Economic Summit tagged, “Nigeria 2050: Shifting Gears,” noted that the Nigerian government needs to create more political opportunities for youths if the current ageing leaders really care about the future of the country which they will leave behind.

He said that Not-Too-Young-To-Run Act, which lowers the age qualification to contest elections into public offices, was laudable, pointing out that it might not be enough in getting youths involved.

“Our representatives at the Senate and House of Representatives need to work on further amendment of our constitution to provide more affirmative political opportunities for the youths and women.

“There are countries in Africa where certain number of parliament seats are reserved for youths and women. For instance, Ugandan constitution makes provision for its parliament to have one woman-representative for every district and the youths have five reserved seats each too.

“We can replicate this too in Nigeria. Our youths are innovative and ready to work but only if given the opportunities,” he said.

Ogundoyin said that reduction of out-of-school children and improving children education in Oyo State is one of the primary goals of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)-led administration in the state.

According to him, when out-of-school children reduced to five per cent within 10 years, then 2050 can look safe for Nigerians as a country.

“For Nigeria to be positioned within a global competitive arena over the next 30 years, we have to improve our education sector to a stage where information and technology can be adopted, mastered and reproduced by us.

“We also need to diversify into agriculture to produce enough for our consumption and also feed other nations through exportation. Our decaying infrastructure have to come to life and youths have to be involved for us to be able to sustain and advance our giant strides as a nation,” he added.