A must read by ALL youths across the World. ......Your time has come! , You can never be too young to do great things. Step out and Overcome. ================================= Tomorrow depends on the Youth. A goodwill message to Imo Youths on the occasion of the PDP YOUTH SUMMIT, Imo State on Friday 29th August, 2014. Protocols. I am very grateful to the PDP Youth Leader the indefatigable Okey Ezuruike and his team. I am indeed very grateful to our State Chairman and his executive for approving the convocation of this summit. I salute the Chairman of the occasion, Your Excellency and all the array of personalities present. I congratulate all the Youths of our great party for leading so that the Elders could follow. Ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate all the Youths of Imo State, the real bedrocks of our tomorrow. It must be Obivious to all, beyond lip service, that we must build on our youths, if we must look forward to a tomorrow greater than our present. This responsibility belongs to all of us. The Elders in the communities must resume their leadership roles and show good example to the young ones. The church leaders must inculcate in the youths the fear of God. The business class must teach the young ones business with morality, to paraphrase Ghandi. Politicians must bequeath to the coming generation politics with principle. All of us must return to the critical business of nurturing the future. With what I see today, we face the grave danger of watching our future slip away from us. Often we blame the youths for what is really not their fault. For example, is it really their fault that the standard of education has fallen ? Is it their fault that the only prospect facing them after graduation is unemployment ? Who do we blame ? There is enough blame to go round, but the blame game cannot solve the challenges we face today. We are victims of the consequences of unemployment among the youths. One of the most pressing challenges today is to keep the youths gainfully employed or occupied. Otherwise they will drift into crime . One of the areas through which youths, all over the world, have escaped from poverty and crime is through youth development. Imo State policies under my administration, made giant strides in the implementation of well thought-out policies for youth development. For example, the State won 23 gold, 28 silver and 36 bronze medals at the 16th National Sports festival which was held in Kaduna in February 2009. This is still the States best outing till date. You will also recall that people tried to play crude politics with the 10,000 permanent graduate jobs we created for our youths in imo state under the same policy framework. Unfortunately, Okorochas administration prematurely and callously terminated these jobs, sentencing these youths back to unemployment. Outright smear campaign and evil propaganda all in the name of politics drags everybody down. Those who indulge in it are no different from those who made careers as saboteurs during the Civil War. Many of them are today poor men and their children useless. The children of some of the saboteurs sold off the fruits of their father’s iniquity to support fast life. Others are not free today because of fear of retribution. Their past has caught up with them. What this means is that those who sacrificed their peoples interest in other to amass personal wealth and power or destroyed others by blackmail are today not better than those they destroyed. Those still indulging in these destructive tendencies must take heed now! We must desist from putting before Nigeria, leaders who have been compromised. Ladies and gentlemen, our nation is in the throes of what a scholar has called the Tyranny of old ideas. What our nation needs today is leadership rooted in new ideas, leadership that is courageous enough to effect change, determined leadership with the capacity to challenge new frontiers and leadership with the capacity of seeing the broad pictures and not leadership by bit players. Leadership is not about giving people fish, that is paternalism! Leadership is about teaching people how to fish. A credible leader must be courageous to break new grounds and lead change even if it makes him unpopular. Like Moses, he may become unpopular in times of difficult choices. Moses could have flinched from leading the Israelites out of Egypt, considering the hard times ahead of them. Many times, people consider the cost of making a change, but they never consider the cost of not making a change. The greatest enemy of progress is comfort zone! A credible leader is not afraid of pulling people out of their comfort zones. A genuine leader is not afraid of unconquered territories. He leads by example; he is humble and not afraid to say am sorry , because he knows that his strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12 :9). A credible leader does not use his tongue injuriously (proverbs 10:6-32), rather he proclaims justice and speaks hope for the future. He inspires people to be positive. He shares the hurt and the joys of the people. People must look at the leader and feel strong especially in trying times. Like a good shepherd, a leader must make sacrifices for his flock and not mind his own hurt. We must be seen to be moving forward not sliding backwards. The youths of this country must drive the change to a new Nigeria. To liberate our nation from the crippling old ideas, our youths must be volunteers for the struggle ahead. You must develop a can-do spirit no matter the obstacles. For example, the Obama phenomenon a few years ago, is really rooted in the activism and conviction of the youths of America that the come had come for change, and that, yes, they can effect that change and they did. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind us all that politics is not about blackmail and Mudslinging; politics is not about killing the opponent in order to grab power; politics is not about trafficking left and going right; politics is not even a dirty game as people often say. Politics is a noble vocation aimed at raising leadership for human development. And call to leadership is a consistent pattern in the Bible. As Dr. Maxwell said, When God decided to raise a nation of Bis own, He didnt call on the masses. He called out one leader- Abraham. When He wanted to deliver His people out of Egypt, He didnt guide them as a group. He raised a leader to do it - Moses. When it came time for the people to cross into the Promised Land, they followed one man - Joshua. And let me add: when God wanted to end segregation in America, He raised one man, a preacher - Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. When He wanted to liberate India, He raised Mahatma Gandhi. When He wanted to end apartheid in South Africa, He raised Nelson Mandela. And Maxwell concludes, Every time God desires to do something great, He calls a leader to step forward. Even today, God still calls you and me to step forward to change things for our party and our State. As we enter the critical period of general elections again in our country, I call on our youths to be agents of change. I call on the youths to be a legacy of struggle for a better tomorrow. I implore the youths not to be willing tools in the hands of politicians of dead ideas. My parting words for our dear youths is that, given the same environment, you are as good as anywhere in the world. You must therefore exercise the same right to dream big dreams like youths elsewhere. You too can change your circumstances through creativity and determination. Only you can safeguard the future of our Democracy. Only you can uproot the old order of politics of self- aggrandisement. It is in your hands to identify and partner with genuine leaders and retrieve this State from the dangerous precipice. And most importantly, you must show that the future of this State and country truly depends on you, because I believe that our tomorrow does not depend on just any youth, but on Youths that have prepared to accept the responsibility of leadership. Let the obstacles you face not be impediments, let them be impetus to success. Remember, Bill Gates who founded Microsoft was a High School Dropout. Steve Jobwas in his early twenties when he founded Apple Computer in his fathers garage. Alvan Ikoku was just a 31 year old teacher when he took the bold step to found a college. I therefore, leave you today with the words of Rev. Jesse Jackson: Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. In the end faith will not disappoint. Your time has come ! You can never be too young to do great things. Step out and Overcome to enable us return Imo to the hands of God. Thank you all. Dr. Ikedi Ohakim former Governor, Imo State.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 09:10:25 +0000
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