Youths from across all interests met in Akure, the capital city of Ondo State over the weekend at the Follower-ship Symposium 2019 event to brainstorm on how best to harness their God-given potentials and skills.
Welcoming the participants at the event, the Convener for the Followership Symposium 2019, Mr. Akinbulumo Oluwatosin urged them to take full advantage of the Symposium to interact with the array of Guests Speakers invited to speak in order to learn and grow.
The Convener, Mr. Akinbulumo Oluwatosin challenged the delegates to take complete ownership of their future by holding no one accountable for their past failures but only themselves.
He stressed that the Followership Symposium is targeted at driving the participants to success by equipping them with adequate knowledge, skills that will enable them identify opportunities, manage their crisis, understand governance and interprete public policies. He advised them to keep their future intact by keeping off the vultures around their lives and taking ownership of their destinies with enough determination, commitment and resoluteness.
Speaking at the Followership Symposium, one of the guests speakers, Mr. Adeyemi Feyisade Charles, the Chief Executive Officer of Chale Institute and Academic/Director of African Students for Liberty based in Akure called on the society, the young people and the Nigerian government to join hands together to fight the growing menace called poverty.
Feyisade counseled the Nigerian young individuals to take responsibilities for their challenges and check themselves and their communities. He called on the Federal Government to tackle the power problem being faced in the country at the moment by allowing every business minded individuals in the country who has the means of floating personal businesses to be empowered through proper legislations and laws so as to generate more job opportunities.
Feyisade advised the Nigerian government to allow private people own Power Plants as a way to permanently solve the electricity problems bedeviling the country.
In his words, he said: “the power sector needs to be urgently privatised and decentralized. The process of the decentralization of the power sector that the government started a few years ago needs to be urgently accelerated. We need a situation where private people can own power plants, transmit, distribute and sell to consumers.
In another session, Mr. Zadok Akintoye, the Director of Media and Publicity for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State as well as the Executive Director, Centre of Advocacy and Protection of Education on Democracy counseled young adults to consider their abilities and strengths before venturing into politics. Akintoye expressed sadness over the manner the cultural, values and heritage of Nigerians have been lost to the British. He frowned at how Nigerians have adopted foreign languages in exchange for theirs.
Akintoye maintained that Nigerians are no longer willing to pay sacrifices upon which the Nigerian Democracy works and strives.
He said “The earlier we begin to get brilliant young people into politics, the better it will be for Nigeria’s Democracy. Nigerians have become British citizens because Nigeria is the only country that adopted foreign languages as its own. Nigeria will only work when we do away with things that seem to erode away our culture and heritage. Nigeria was created to fail and not to work. The values Nigerians put on honesty are very low. Poverty is one of the tools by which the British governs the black race. Nigeria’s Democracy is a big time conspiracy”.
Mr. Kayode Ajomale, an expert in Business Intelligent and Co-Founder, IStudio in Akure while delivering his lecture at the Follower-ship Symposium explained that patience is a tool needed to excel in business. He defined doubt as a tool used to undermine the truth and maintained that the reason why opportunities are often lost are as a result of our bias.
He counseled young adults to always check on their bias on issues relating to gender, ethnicity and religiosity.
Ajomale urged young people to put their brain to work by thinking well before taking decisions. He advised young adults against making decisions on a surface level. “Making rash decisions without asking questions will lead to nowhere”.
He also urged and counseled the people to see opportunities and make use of them. “I urge you to always dig deeper and avail people how they can see and access opportunities even when they are not visible”.
Mrs. Francisca Onyinye Ogunlade, the Convener of the Beauty and Bride Exhibitions, Founder of Eftinzz Outfits and Akadani Innovations and the only female guest speaker at the 2019 Followership Symposium in her own submission, stated that “the task of passing across messages that will raise the hopes of others towards their challenges of life is my own major concern”. She spoke on the topic titled: “Rise Above the Limits: Beyond the Present”.
Francisca recounted how she was involved in a ghastly motor accident which nearly took away her life, she said it was the divine intervention she received from God that kept her alive. She explained the need for the people to break the limits around them to be able to achieve their set goals and objectives.
She also urged the participants at the event to be strong, ready and willing to face their challenges squarely as she was also able to face her own and still overcome it after almost losing one of her eye to the ghastly motor accident about six years ago.
Packaged by Emmanuel Adeniran
