Agba to Edo Youths: Choose a leader who will address issues of youth empowerment on a sustainable basis

Immediate past Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba has called on Edo youths and other critical stakeholders to prioritiize leadership change and ensure that someone with extensive experience in both private and public sectors is chosen to address the issue of youth empowerment in the state on a sustainable basis.

Agba made the call when a team from Edo Youths Connect Forum Worldwide, a non-governmental organisation, led by its founder and coordinator, Idiatu Abdulkadir Hassan, paid him a courtesy visit in his Abuja office on Tuesday (September 19, 2023).

In a post on his X (formerly Twitter) handle, Agba wrote: “I advised the group and well-meaning Edo Stakeholders to prioritize leadership change and ensure that someone with extensive experience in both private and public sectors is supported to provide Edo State with a sharply-focused leadership that will audaciously address the issue of youth empowerment on a sustainable basis.”

He said the leadership of the Edo Youths Connect Forum Worldwide briefed him on the vision and mission of the non-governmental organisation, adding that he aligned with the ad-hoc plans of the organisation to assist Edo Youths in acquiring requisite vocational skills as part of its campaign against Edo youths’ involvement in some identified social vices.

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Agba said that during his conversation with the team, he recalled that in the national development plan, which he supervised as minister, the nation had 60 per cent youths in the national demography, and emphasised the imperative of a strategic and sustainable approach through the institution of government to address the problems (of drug abuse, killings, stealing and get-rich-quick syndrome-“yahoo-yahoo” facing the youths) that were not peculiar to only Edo State.

Founder and Coordinator of the organisation, Idiatu Abdulkadir Hassan, had said in her remarks that the Forum was out to make things easy for Edo Youths through a series of empowerment programmes, adding that “we have come to intimate you with our programmes because we know you have passion for youth development and women empowerment.”

The Forum’s Assistant Coordinator, Fatimah Momoh, commended Prince Agba’s profound understanding of the problems facing Edo Youth and how to solve them by leveraging his wealth of experience in public service.

In a veiled reference to a higher responsibility in the future, she said: “You need to carry along the youths and the entire population of the state without which there can be no governance,” adding “with you in the leadership seat in Edo State, we will be in good hands.”