THEME: Harnessing the Potentials of Young Professionals towards Accelerated Developement in Nigeria

VENUE: Hotel Pennsylvania, Manhattan. New York

DATE: 27th SEPTEMBER 2014

 

SPECIAL GUESTS: ALHAJI MUKTAR RAMALAN YERO -GOVERNOR, KADUNA STATE, PROFESSOR JOY UGWU -NIGERIAN PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO THE U.N, PROF. DR. HOPE OGHENERUKEVBE EGHAGHA -REP. GOVERNOR, DELTA STATE, DR KATCH ONONUJU -PRESIDENT HERITAGE CENTRE ABUJA.

 

The Nigerian Young Professionals forum held its United States maiden summit in the state of New York.

The summit opened with the National Anthem and a brief welcome speech to usher in all present at the event. The MC informed the house that it was the first time the NYPF was holding a summit in the United States of  America therefore it was a remarkable day in history and thanked all present for making out time to be at the summit while promising them a worthwhile experience.

               The USA co-ordinator of the NYPF Mr. Okenfe Lebarty gave a brief remark on the activities of the NYPF as a platform which is presently engaging masses of young Nigerian professionals all over the world to come together and actively participate in Nigeria's stewardship. According to him every young person should think of the generation coming after and what they can leave behind for these coming generations to build on. He issued a wake up call to all young Nigerians to Stand up together urging that it was a collective responsibility and should not be left in the hands of a handfull, most of whom have yet to demonstrate the capacity that Leadership of a vastly rich and highly populated country demands.

A short documentary of the achievements of The Nigerian Young Professionals Forum was played to encourage new inductees and invited guest to Join the nypf movement that we hope will bring about the growth we need in Nigeria.

 

The Chairman of the NYPF Mr. Moses Siloko Siasia took the stage with an opening remark;

 

“I am excited that NYPF is making history all over the world, from Africa to Asia from Asia to Europe and now we are in the United States. We are in for a serious business and creating a platform for change is our driving force. For you to bring about change, you must be the change. We have a network of over 13 million Young Professionals and presence in over 15 countries of the world. We have challenges back home and it is very important for us to sit up  and tackle these issues hindering the successful growth of our dear country. There are lots of opportunities back home that require the intellect and energy of vibrant Young minds to accomplish. I have told NYPF members repeatedly not to castigate or reign abuses on their Nation because outsiders will form a negative opinion about us and this will project our Nation in a bad light.

 

We don’t look at the problems, we look at the opportunities and offer solutions that is why NYPF is the Number one young peoples’ organization in Nigeria. We believe we must work constructively as young people to reshape and guide the policies of this present administration because NYPF does not work for Government we work with the Government as an NGO and because of this, we ensure that policies set up by the Government have a positive effect on us, as Young Leaders who are ready to take up the mantle of Leadership and bring about the much desired change”.    

                    

He welcomed everyone present with elation and welcomed the Executive Governor of Kaduna State Alhaji Muktar Ramalan Yero, thanking him for the support, love and encouragement which he had always shown the NYPF, he requested the house to jointly welcome the governor who had seen the growth of Young People as a priority for National development.

 

In the same vein, Mr. Siasia welcomed the Nigerian Ambassador to the United Nations Prof. Joy Ugwu and Nigerian ambassador to the United States, Prof. Adebowale Adefuyi, among other dignitaries present at the summit.

 Mr. Siasia said that he was very happy because the dreams of the NYPF was driven by young people who were working together, bringing in expertise, strength and professionalism towards nation building. In his exact words,

“we are the trustees of prosperity and the future of our beloved Nation lies on our shoulders. If we fold our hands without working constructively to ensure that we safe guard our future, the younger generation will not be happy with us and that precisely has been the driving force behind the Nigerian Young Professionals Forum”.   

He informed everyone present that the NYPF had started a series of campaigns geared towards reshaping and revamping our social economic problems and political issues which we are faced with as a Nation. Buttressing on the issues facing the Nation, Mr. Siasia said the NYPF has come up to engage young people who are positively minded towards economic growth and political process.

 

Citing the just concluded International summit in Abuja, in 3months the NYPF had gone round the country mobilizing young people for change because the NYPF believes that 35% of those adding values to the country are very young people and this can be increased.

According to Mr. Siasia the Nigerian Young Professionals Forum was in the U.S for a reason which was to fill in the gap by mobilizing people who are ready to share the same concerns and ideology with the NYPF to ensure that we safeguard our future. He said that every young person must work constructively to reshape and guide the present administration as their decisions affect us either negatively or positively. He challenged young people abroad to return home and ensure that they fill in the gap to build a new and a prosperous Nigeria. He concluded by saying that it was his utmost desire and hope that the young professionals in the united states will bring about the positive minded contribution that was much need for young people to thrive, he therefore formally inaugurated the NYPF in the United States.

Moving swiftly, the panel section was headed by Mrs Stepheny Uzulumba and the panel was made up of;

• Alhaji Muktar Ramalan Yero,  Governor Kaduna State

• Prof. Dr. Hope Oghenerukevbe Eghagha, Representing the Delta State Governor

• Dr. Katch Ononuju. President Heritage Centre Abuja.

• Mr. Moses Siloko Siasia.  Chairman NYPF.

 

Governor Muktar Yero was the first panelist to take the stage; He started by congratulating the Chairman and organizers of the summit for the success at assembling young Professionals. Gov. Yero said

“I have continued to partner with NYPF because I am a young person who has had an opportunity to be in a position where you can hardly find a lot of young people, and also the seriousness portrayed by the leadership of the NYPF. I had to key into this great vision because we need to impact positively in our Nation, we started in Kaduna and now we are in USA. I am happy and I feel highly honored to be a part of this noble cause, which is an effort making event towards further galvanizing both physical and intellectual strength of our young men and women at National development. Nigeria is one of the few countries endowed with not just abundant natural resources but also the requisite human capital necessary for sustainable growth. I am proud of the foresight of the conveners of this forum who are young men and women with great vision determined to bring about change in Nigeria”.

 

Alhaji Yero stated that he was in full agreement with the objectives, the NYPF had set in trying to empower young people to make the much needed contribution to Nigeria’s leadership, saying It is imperative for everyone to propose and discuss various means for creating job opportunities for young people because they are the major drivers of Nigeria’s economy.

It is a fact that government alone cannot create sufficient jobs hence the urgent need for financial institutions to introduce flexible means of providing funds for new businesses to thrive.

             He encouraged government at different levels to collaborate with both private and public institutions such as CBN, commercial banks, micro finance banks, sovereign wealth funds with the sole arm of creating funds to support business initiative by young professionals in order to enable them to grow. This way the economy will benefit through job creation, such approach had become imperative because the burden of a successful future for our great country lies in the present generation of young people.

 

Alhaji Yero stressed on the need for young professionals’ to realize the importance of skills to National development, saying paper qualification alone can no longer sustain our economy. Every young professional must possess some form of skills to sufficiently beat into the primary of a monoeconomy atmosphere. This agitation has aggravated the high rate of unemployment in our country because the economy requires a functional education system not just paper qualification.

              Consequently, we must direct our attention to redeem the present education policy in order to incubate a younger population with technical expertise to drive the economy. He added that Nigeria cannot afford to lag behind in a world that is on the fast lane of technology advancement.

He called on young professionals in Diaspora to extend their success back home to Nigeria, by encouraging them to tap into the wealth of experience of the older generation .He congratulated the organizers especially the chairman for the hard work, dedication and commitment to the NYPF dream and thanked the Nigerian Young Professionals Forum for inviting him to the summit.

 

The 2nd Speaker, Commissioner Higher Education Delta Prof. Dr. Hope Oghenerukevbe Eghagha, said 

“I am happy to be here representing the governor of Delta State bringing goodwill message from the governor and people of Delta state”. 

He started by saying it could never happen for the older generation to leave the offices for the younger generation, according to him it is not realistic because the wisdom of the elders was paramount to guide the idealism of the youths. He said that nobody but we ourselves must develop our society, we need the right idealism as youths which can change our world by channeling this ideas into positive ventures.

 

On harnessing our potentials as young people, Prof. Hope said these potentials have to be in the areas of education, administration, ICT, among others, as young people we can build bridges. He asked the audience a question,

"if the older generation were to hand over leadership to the young people, I will love to ask are the young ones ready for the responsibility ahead? Are they ready to surpass what the older generation has achieved?" 

He buttressed on the strength of the young Nigerians evident in todays use of social media, and hoped the platform was being put to good use. In his own words"we should try to re-evaluate our value system to ensure that it projects positive activities"

He called on young professionals in diaspora to return home because no outsiders would come back to develop our country for us. According to him Nigeria has a lot of high level professionals living abroad, if they decided to come home and subsequently, poured into the Nigerian economy we will be on the way to a better society sooner rather than later. Thanking the organizers for the opportunity, he ended with other words of advice on creating job opportunities through entrepreneuship. 

 

Dr. Katch Ononuju, President of the Heritage Center Abuja took the stage thanking everyone present at the summit, and he said he prayed for more youth-friendly Leaders like the Kaduna state governor and said that he was happy to see a lot of young professionals present at the summit, Nigeria was doing well as the largest economy in Africa by GDP, especially in the areas of banking, telecommunications and entertainment which have grown since democracy started.

According to him the current growth in the country is moving at a non inclusive pace because of the policies in the country so therefore he urged the Young Professionals to stand up and change the status quo.

 “Nigeria is one of the biggest countries on earth that undermines the interest of young people, a society that does not have educated and employed youths will face a lot of problems and that was why I am pleading with our government to set up means to correct this trend. We need a country that works on merit so that young people can take over office because we believe that they will perform well if given the opportunity. We are blessed in Nigeria and looking at the future I believe that Nigeria’s economy will get even better than it is”  he added.

Dr. Ononuju encouraged young people to synergize their energy into productive ventures; for those in diaspora, they should lobby for inclusion and counter every negative activities and backdoor corrupt practices which harm the Nigerian state.

Chairman NYPF Mr. Moses Siloko Siasia started on an opening call for discipline on the part of young professionals. Adding his voice to further motivate the young professionals, he said that what was obtainable in Nigeria gives him a cause for concern and stressed that the Nigerian Young Professionals Forum was should hopefully help create a platform or airspace for young people who were ready for change. In his words

 

"if you are not ready for change then NYPF was equally not ready for you, we are concerned about those who are ready to add value".

 

He went further to urge young people to speak truth at all times so as to enable us have a trusted voice and most importantly, to gradually take over the economy of the nation. He encouraged the young professionals who intend to come home and contribute to the process of nation building. saying young professionals in the United States should live an exemplary life style which is worthy of emulation to bring respect to the Nigerian name abroad.

 

GOODWILL MESSAGE FROM PROF. ADEBOWALE ADEFUYI-NIGERIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE USA.      

 

“I am very impressed by what the Nigerian Young Professionals Forum is doing and I can attest to the drive that every goal set here today is attainable, therefore I will identify myself with these objectives" 

According to him, every Nigerian youth has a potential which is still un-tapped. What is left is for us to live up to our potentials which is what our country is waiting for. Every young professional should be in the driver seat of the Nations development process because the capacity of young people can exert their energies to achieve cannot be underestimated.

Prof. Adefuyi called on young professionals to contribute their own quota to the development of the Nation by showing more patriotism in every sphere we find ourselves. He therefore pledged his support to the cause of the Nigerian Young Professionals Forum, assuring the house of his full support through the activities of his office that is determined to build a better Nigeria.   

 

PROF. JOY UGWU- NIGERIAN PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS. HER SPEECH:

 

"Your Excellency Prof Adefuyi,

Your Excellency Distingushed young People

The Chairman of the youth movement

Young Professionals

I am really delighted that this is happening in my life time, this movement of the youths. I want to thank especially the champions and the supporters of this movement.

In politics of science which is called political science, there are indices of power that make a country, a sovereign state so powerful. Some are tangible others are intangible. One index of power is population and now it is determined that 60% of Nigeria population are young people. What do we do with this population? It is a decision; it is a choice we have to make.

If we reinforce this population and make it healthy and educated, then it becomes a strategic National asset. If we choose not to do so, then the population becomes a liability and a minus.

What do we want? The Moses of this movement has reiterated many times that this must be a strategic national asset.

I just want to draw one or two lessons from all that has been said here tonight Young Nigerians must link up with the rest of the world and this could be achieved through the United Nations forum

The second lesson I want to leave for you as food for thought, and I noticed that all the other speakers have made reference to it in one way or the other that is Character building.As you go on with this movement do not forget the most rudimentary activities which are gradually fading out of our society. I do not hear about boys scout anymore, I do not hear about girls guild anymore, I do not hear about brownies anymore. In the 50s in PortHarcourt at American Baptist Day School that was where I was trained for the future. We do not have colonialist  anymore to help train our children it is therefore in our hands to groom them ourselves, the succeeding generation we need to catch them young  and of course the NYPF is the perfect interest group to exert pressure on the political process and government. When I was growing up even at the age of 9 the queen was going to visit Nigeria in 1956, in 1955, I was trained for 1 year as a brownie when the queen arrived in 1956 April at the stadium in PortHarcourt we were keeping law and order and once you were seen in your uniform and the whip, even the elders stayed orderly behind the barricade. We were taught the virtues of honor, the virtues of integrity, and the virtues of civility, resillence the spirit of service discipline hard work those values we talked about this evening that are no longer prevalent in our society you can only do it by instilling it in the children. We kept law and order and there were no negative events in that stadium.

I want to leave you with a personal story, 54 years later the same Queen Elizabeth visited the United Nations and wanted to meet with members of the security council, Yours Truly was the president of the council, I being a little girl then and she a young woman but just to add there is a divinity that shapes our ends.

I hope that this gives you hope that all is not lost and you can reshape the future."

 

Mr. Siasia thanked the Kaduna State governor for all the support and encouragement the NYPF has always enjoyed from him; he thanked all the speakers and solicited for a continuous support to the Nigerian Young Professionals Forum.