..As Country Director laments bottlenecks in getting collaboration with MDAs
By Chimezie Godfrey
As part of efforts to empower Nigerian youths, COLLETT Foundation, has awarded cash prizes and other empowerment packages to winners of its annual national writing competition.
The Foundation also launched a Magazine named “ULINBUN” to disseminate its activities and developmental strides, and to serve as a means of showcasing to the world the good image of Nigeria, and Africa at large.
Speaking to Newsdiaryonline Correspondent, during the occasion of its National Writing Completion and Magazine Launch on Thursday in Abuja, the Country Director, COLLETT Foundation, Nigeria, Engr Oluwasegun Ogunsola said the essence of the competition was to encourage Nigerian youths to write about things that are inspiring about Nigeria, which would enable them develop a positive mindset about the country.
Ogunsola said the competition was also organized to motivate the youths to think positively about themselves, to enable them take cognisance of their abilities and realize their potentials.
“Today is the 2nd COLLETT national writing completion where we encourage the youths to write about something inspiring about Nigeria so that we can start to grow a set of leaders that think positively about the country, and also think positively about themselves and their abilities, and then likewise we reward them with some prizes.
“The Foundation came to Nigeria in February 2019, and it was registered in February 2020. The journey I will say in a large way is going but not without challenges. There are a lot of challenges in Nigeria but we should not concentrate on challenges. We must complain but we should not complain too much because if everything were to be moving well there would not be any need for intervention. So, our coming to the country or starting to do anything in the areas where we are currently working is because there are challenges which actually requires solutions.
“Our foundation is active in three key parts, the development of the youths by promoting quality education which includes technical skills, functional skills and moral skills, that is one arm of our focus. The second pillar of our focus is community intervention and community development. In community development, we want to work with the communities to let them understand that development can be in any part of the country irrespective of the remoteness of that community and also to teach them on how to embrace community collaboration in developing their environment. For instance in the area of school control, energy production, sewage management, and waste management, etc. So, those are the areas.
“And the third area is about social intervention, and with the social intervention, we are covering support for small businesses where we train them on small skills and also work with partners to ensure that they are empowered with little stipends to be able to operate within the areas of their interest. So, we bring them together, we train them, we also mentor them to be able to market the skills they learn or to produce and to be able to package their products.
“Our focus in the coming years is for us to become a defacto organisation that will be reckoned with in terms of our achievements, and in terms of number of skills to our children through our interventions, and our collaborations.”
Speaking about collaborations with Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government, Ogunsola lamented that the government apparatus in the country was not quite encouraging.
“The government apparatus in Nigeria, I must say the majority of the MDAs they are not very encouraging in terms of opening up to partnership. They are very much about budgets under which they always hide to claim that there is no money even though we that goes to them for collaboration are not asking for money. We are asking for collaboration to do things for the country. With that I think is a huge challenge.
“On the other hand I want to appreciate some of them who are here to collaborate with us. Who are also willing to endorse us by virtue of seeing what we stand for and what we are doing. A few of them have endorsed us, but bringing to the level of signing the MoU which some of them have been there for the past 3 years is an issue. If they fully like what we are doing and they really want to appreciate that we are here to actually make their job easy, I see no reason why it should take them 3 years to an MoU,” he said.
He expressed optimism that for the federal government to achieve it’s target of diversifying the economy it needs to invest on education.
“I am very positive that for the federal government to achieve its economic aim of diversifying the economy of Nigeria a lot of work need to be done in the area of investing on education. And
investing on education does not mean pumping money into education. It may be in the area of rejuvenating or reshuffling the education curriculum from elementary school to university level.
“I believe if the government can do that and put the right control measures in place, there will be a lot of opportunities opening up in that sector in terms of investors and donors coming in that is number one; then two, let me give for example, am dreaming of a day very soon when elementary education will be made compulsory for every child in this country. And also for government to give punishment to parents that refuse to teach his or her child the ‘mother language’ because that is the language for people to develop and that is the language for people to innovate and do exploits.
“They should look at all these countries around the world where marvelous things have been created, majority of these countries they teach in their languages. So, I will enjoin the government to look into this as a way of improving education, and if education is improved upon a lot of problems would have been solved, he said.
He acknowledged that President Bola Tinubu has started very well, but encouraged him to do more to bring Nigerian youth to where they will become patriotic again.
He therefore advised that for Mr President to achieve that he should engage the movie industry and the music industry, expressing the believe that there are lots of potential in the industry they yet untapped to be able to bring the youths together even quicker than “we think”.
Speaking about the launch of the magazine, he said,”We are launching “ULIMBUN”, Ulimbun is a word meaning progress from an ethnic group in Jos, Plateau state. Ulimbun is a word we actually use to start to tell our stories as Africans, as Nigerians. It is time we start to embrace ourselves. So that is another way to tell the world that good things are happening in Abuja, good things are possible in Nigeria.
“So we chose ULIMBUN as an indigenous language, we could have chosen any English word but we refused to do that. ULIMBUN will be published every year at every time this event is done. Every time there is a competition ULIMBUN will be used to proclaim it and also to document it for future reference.
“All the first ten participants of this event there article will be published in ULIMBUN, and then we have a few organisations who have identified with us. We intend to distribute it on ministries, we will do it according to the capacity that God has given us.
Also speaking at the event, the Director General, Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) Folorunso Aluko said the event did not only showcase the incredible intellectual prowess of the participants, but also marked the launch of an exciting new magazine that promises to ignite curiosity and knowledge in all Nigerians.
He said,”We are gathered here to honour the power of knowledge to celebrate the pursuit of wisdom, and to recognize the outstanding achievements of some of the brightest minds in our nation. The national quiz competition organized by Collett has been a beacon of excellence, bringing together talented individuals from all works of life, all driven by a thirst for knowledge and a passion for learning
“Throughout the competition we have witnessed inspiring displays of intelligence, with ,and strategic thinking. Each participant has demonstrated their debt of understanding in various fields, from science to literature, from history to current affairs. They have shown us that knowledge truly is boundless, and the quest for wisdom knows no boundaries.
“But today is not just about the participants who have astounded us with their brilliance. It is also an opportunity to appreciate the collective efforts of Collett in nurturing talent, promoting intellectual growth and fostering a society that values knowledge. They have not organized the competition but also launched a Magazine that will become a valuable resource for inquisitive minds across our nation and the world at large.”
Aluko applauded all the participants in the national quiz competition, as he advised Nigerians to seek knowledge, and to embody the spirit of a lifelong learner.
Also at the auspicious occasion were staff from the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Niger-Delta Affairs who pledged their support to the noble initiative by Collett, among other critical stakeholders and patriotic Nigerians.
The high point of the event was the announcement of winners of the quiz competition. Accordingly the cash prize of N50,000 was awarded to the 3rd position, cash prize of N70,000 was awarded to the 2nd position while the 1st position garnered the cash prize of N100,000.
