Speeches

Passing Out Parade Of The Members Of National Youth Service Corps

Jun 16, 2011 - My dear outgoing Corp Members, my delight in being amongst you today is evidenced by the fact that I have had to cut short a business trip to Israel in order to personally attend your passing out parade.

Normally, this responsibility falls in Lagos State within the schedule of duties of the Honourable Commissioner or his Permanent Secretary but I have chosen to be here to personally thank all of you on behalf of my Party, the Action Congress of Nigeria, and all our elected representatives for the work that you and your colleagues across our country did to give this nation the semblance of a credible electoral process for the first time in her entire history.

You have done more than deliver an electoral process that is acceptable and I will speak a little more about that. The cost of that election to our Nation is what is uppermost in my mind and I will address it first.

Today, as you leave here with smiles on your faces with expectation in the hearts of your parents, guardians and siblings, some of your colleagues will not be around to share these joyous moments.

They do not deserve to be absent. They had done everything expected by this society for them to be here. They went to school, they toiled for examinations, they passed the examinations, and listed to serve Nigeria under the National Youth Service Corp programme.

These were not illegal acts. These were the expectations of their country from them. As if they had not done enough, their country asked for more. She asked them to help conduct elections which generations before them had failed to conduct successfully.

Again they obliged. They produced credible Voters' Register and inspite of the challenges; they delivered elections adjudged to meet minimum global standards.

But instead of being rewarded, they were murdered. The country they served could not protect them.

Teidi Tosin Olawale, Nkwazema Anslem Chukwunonyerem, Okpokiri Obinna Michael, Adowei Elliot, Adewunmi Seun Paul, Adeniji Kehinde Jehleel, Gbenjo Ebenezer Ayotunde, Ukeoma Ikechukwu Chibuzor, Akonyi Ibrahim Sule and Anyanwu Agnes are not with us anymore because they chose to serve their fatherland.

I have come to honour their memory, to salute their service and acknowledge their sacrifice; which has given me the privilege to address you as a Governor.

There is a strong lesson for me here and I want to commend it to you.

The best days of our country lie ahead of us, not behind us.

Should we stop serving our country? The answer is an emphatic negative. Let us be positive and courageous. Let us see these young martyrs of our democracy as the architects of our new beginning.

We must resolve that Nigeria should be worth dying for, so that she can be worth living in.

Your generation has succeeded where many generations have failed. You produced a reliable Voters' Register and delivered credible elections with very little preparations and against all odds.

Can you imagine what can happen, if you have time to prepare to lead and change the way things are done in this country?

That is another reason why I am here today, to tell you that nothing is impossible. If your minds can think of it, your hands will certainly deliver it.

Our Government has exploded many myths about things that were once thought to be impossible and this is the message that I want to share with you.

As you leave this environment today, please resolve to do something that will ensure that you are not part of our country's unemployment index.

Unemployment persists simply because our economy is not growing in the right areas. We require growth in innovation, agriculture, technology, technical and construction work and those areas that we have traditionally avoided.

These are the places I urge you to set your minds upon.

Our Government has built roads, hospitals, schools and other public facilities that we will need to maintain. Small maintenance firms and partnerships formed by small groups of engineering graduates such as electrical, civil, mechanical and related fields will be needed by us as we go forward.

For example we will require traffic lights and lane marking machines to be produced locally to manage traffic. We will require hands to help produce food such as poultry, grains, and vegetables for our growing population to feed.

We are still behind in our State and country's infrastructure needs and will need hands to build them. We will need buttons, zippers, thread, needles and related items to cloth ourselves.

Let your imaginations run, and you will see how many more things we need that we do not produce and you will understand why I say that the onus is upon you to either be an employed graduate or a graduate employer.

As a Government, we can do two things.

Employ people directly into Government and initiate policies and programmes that enable people find work for themselves and for others.

We have done both and we will continue to increase on the latter by evolving more projects, programmes and policies that create opportunities for entrepreneurship.

Our Rice for Job Scheme started with 165 (One Hundred and Sixty Five) farmers aged between 25 (Twenty Five) and 55 (Fifty Five) years old. About 80% of them were first time farmers. It has increased rice cultivation in Lagos from about 10 (Ten) Hectares to about 170 (One Hundred and Seventy) hectares in 2010; and created a value chain of opportunities and employment for over 2,000 (Two Thousand) people and it is still expanding.

The Agric Youth Employment Scheme targets 1,000 (One thousand) graduate farmers in its pilot stage and first batch of 100 (One Hundred) have completed a 6 (six) month intensive course and now have access to working capital and 1 (one) hectare of land each to start out as young farmers while others are still in training.

The Lagos Ignite Programme, has employed the first batch of 507 (Five Hundred and Seven) graduate teachers with the possibility for further expansion in other areas.

We have started the Rice for Job Scheme, the Agric-Yes Scheme and the Lagos Ignite Enterprise Programme, which continue to provide opportunities for employment to our people; and we will not relent.

We are keeping those younger than you in our focus as well because every year we employ not less than 5,000 students on vacation job for at least 8 weeks during the long vacation and we are ready to execute this year's programme.

There is a lot I could say as I am sure that there are questions you wish to ask. I believe some of the questions that you may have will be answered better than I could possibly respond to them, if you take time to read one of the books from which I have drawn inspirations recently which I commend to you is a book titled "Start Up Nation: A Story of Israel's Economic Miracle". It is written by Dan Senor and Saul Singer.

Before I conclude, I will lend my voice to the arguments that have been generated about the National Youth Service Corps programme.

After almost 40 (forty) years, I am in agreement that is content calls for review but certainly its relevance as a vehicle of social interaction and national unity is undebatable.

In other words, I think that it is an over-reaction to call for its abolition. I am of the view that the events that provoke those calls can lead us to better utilization of the programme if we try.

For example, can we improve our food production every year if we commit all our graduates to properly organized farms settlements every year?

Can we improve our internal security if we use the programme to expose our graduates to one year military or police training?

Can we improve our healthcare and life expectancy if we submit all our graduates to nursing training and emergency rescue and lifesaving skills for one year?

In 2007 a total of 18,742 Youth Corpers were posted to Lagos, while the number for 2008 was 16,088. These were more than the number of graduates from Lagos based tertiary institutions.

Can you imagine the input they can make to the Lagos economy if their talents were better harnessed; and efficiently deployed?

But let me say that from today, no teacher will put pressure on you again even if you go for further education.

From today, you have become free of imposed discipline. From today, you will require the greatest discipline to succeed. That is the discipline that you impose upon yourself. It is called self-discipline.

It is a recipe for success in life, I urge you to dig deep inside you to find it and make it a way of life.

Congratulations as you pass out today and may God keep you all under his watchful and protective care.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening.

Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Governor of Lagos State