Reps Plan To Engage Youth For National Development

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Youths in Parliament, Hon. Olamijuwonlo Alao-Akala on Thursday assured Nigerians that the House resolved to put Nigeria back on the world map.

Hon. Alao-Akala who gave the assurance during the inauguration of the Committee, unveiled plans to hold the first annual youths in Parliament conference with a view to inform and educate harmonious relationships among youths in Parliament across the country.

According to him, the Committee in line with the provisions of the 10th Assembly’s Standing Rules is saddled with the responsibility of “initiating good policies on parliamentarian research and documentation and ensuring efficient databank of youths in national and state Assemblies; oversight and monitoring of youths in Parliament; ensuring harmonious relationship between the young legislators in the national and state Assemblies.”

The Committee is also expected to initiate and organise national and international conferences, workshops and other fora for the education of youths in Parliament, recommend to the House the formation of any youth Parliamentary groups, making recommendations on desirability of the House sending youth delegation to specific Inter-Parliamentary events, among others.

While noting that those who voted for youths in Parliament cut across all ages, he assured that the young legislators will put at the front burner issues bothering on national development

“We represent a high demographic of people which is the youth and they are looking up to us that the people we voted for are youths and what are they going to do? How are they representing us well? I keep telling them that only the youths didn’t vote for us, we represent a very large community.”

While disclosing the Committee’s plans to organise conferences for young Parliamentarians at the State Houses of Assemblies across the 36 States of the Federation, he said: “We are Reps with a difference, Nigeria should know that we are ready to put Nigeria back on the map both economically, infrastructural wise and every way possible.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or we wait for some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for, we are the change that we seek, according to the President of the United States, Obama.

“We are the change that we seek, nobody will come and do it for us.”

In his remarks, Hon. Ojotu Ojeme (PDP-Benue) who observed that young Parliamentarians have enormous opportunities ahead, noted that: “There are so many people that struggle to be in the National Assembly that struggle for the whole of their lives to achieve this.

“Some get to this place when they are old enough to be our grandfather. And then we have achieved this in the early stage of our lives. We should walk with our shoulders very high and the way we can demonstrate how much God has done for us is to come to this Committee and give our best and we should be proud to tell Nigerians that we are youths.”

On his part, Hon. Sesi Oluwaseun (APC-Lagos) affirmed that “getting into the hallowed chamber at this age is not a joke. And looking at the number of the young legislators we have here today I think it’s important for us to leverage on that and harmonise ourselves.

“No one knows our future, no one knows our tomorrow. But the relationship we manage to build here may last us for the rest of our lives, might last us for a long time. So this Committee is very important especially for every young legislator out there. It’s an avenue for us to assemble and talk to ourselves, talk about our progress and build relationships from there.

“I know so many great things will come out of this great Committee. We have the age on our side unless we want to deceive ourselves. The future belongs to us, the future of this country is ours. Whatever decision that our leaders in positions today are taking, these decisions are for us rather than for them.

“Like I said, behind camera, that people who care should know that change is imminent in the political space of Nigeria. If you sit back and look at the people at the helm of affairs today, you will know that in a very short time the majority of them will get tired, they will sit down and look back and look at us. And at that point we would be saddled with the responsibility of leading a country like Nigeria.

“We are leading at this stage of ours but I believe we still have a greater opportunity and greater things ahead of us to do and at the end of the day we are going to achieve a whole lot.”