The Former Director General of National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), and founder, Rufus Ebegba Centre for Leadership and Environmental sustainability, Dr Rufus Ebegba, has called on Nigerian youth to support government programmes by coming up with ideas that will bring about sustainable growth to the country.
Dr Ebegba stated this at the Nigeria Dialogue Media Chat held in Abuja with the theme “Our Democratic Stability.”
He said that the stability of the country is very key to all adding that the essence of the meeting was to create a platform for youth in the country to air their views, concerns and grievances.
“It is a forum for all of us to discuss, how do we sustain our democracy to ensure our democracy is stable. You are aware that as a nation, we are plagued with so many delays that tends to threaten our nation …not only that so many socio economic issues are also bordering our nation, so this forum is an opportunity for all particularly on Youth, you can see we purposely invited youth at this forum so that we can discuss because citizens must participate in governance, the voice of citizens must be heard and must also be taken into cognizance so that we can have a balanced economic needs of the people well addressed,“ he said.
According to him, the gathering is basically to see “how we sustain our democracy in the face of so many challenges, at this discussion, you will be free to discuss on issues of security, electoral reforms and legislative reforms, also, we are going to be looking at the issue of Judiciary reforms and Economic infrastructure.”
As the founder of Rufus Ebegba Centre for Leadership and Environmental sustainability, he said the foundation will come up with a communiqué after the programme which will be forwarded to the National Assembly to help guide government policies and directions.
Senator Ita Enang, a former lawmaker, said the Forum was to engage with Nigerian youth to find out their concerns, give them assurances and the renew their hope in the government of President Bola Tinubu.
He said that present administration would do anything to put smile on the faces of Nigerians by giving the youth more hope in their country.
The National Public Relation Officer, National Youth Council of Nigeria, (NYCN), Mr Dotun Omoleye, appealed to the government to fast track the ballot palliative measures designed to ameliorate the effect of fuel subsidy removal.
He said the government needs to look for a way to touch the lives of civil servants directly.
“The National Council is actually in 100 percent in support of subsidy removal, and we agree it’s time we progress forward, and for us to progress there will always be challenges and one of the challenges facing the country is the subsidy which has been removed. But going forward, the livelihood of every person probably young too has been affected with this removal, which has made their finances to be so difficult,” he explained.
He also called on the government to re-introduce the Social investment Programme for the youth.
Issues bothering on youth development, economics transformation and security were topic for dialogue at the Nigeria Dialogue Media Chat.
The Rufus Ebegba Centre for Leadership and Environmental sustainability was established to foster ideal leadership in all spheres of human endeavor for a just world, strong and prosperous economy, freedom, and liberty for all with sustainable environment.
