The Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, has stated that youth participation in nation-building and development is crucial.
Tallen disclosed this in Abuja at an event organised towards transforming the mindset of Nigerian youths for sustainable national development by a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Teens and Nubile Club (Teenub), on Friday.
Represented by an aide, Angela Nkwocha, Tallen stated that no nation can develop when a large percentage of its population are idle and ineffective.
The minister said that a society that prepares the youth for the sake of future aspirations would secure its future development.
She said that it will also prepare its next set of leaders who will champion reconciliation and development.
“Therefore, the role of the youth in national development is sacrosanct to the whole development aspiration of any society.
“The youth in any society is the engine of growth and development; because they provide the labour force for the production of goods and services to take effect.
“Given their strategic role, the youth have the greater responsibility to promote peace, security, stability and national unity through their active involvement in the electoral process.
“They are there to build bridges of understanding across ethnic groups, political affiliations and religious divide,” she stressed.
Programme Coordinator, Teenub, FCT, Mayen Ebonh said that the organisation was out to imbibe in the youth moral behaviour and transform them into better people for the future.
She said that the NGO was out to teach the youth on how to handle situations in society, adding that, recently moral decadence and social vices are prevalent among the youth.
“Teenub means teens and nubile, and then we work with young people and the teenage range, widows, vulnerable women, whatever is involved in training them is what we do.
“Now, today’s programme is centred on the youth, about transforming them, transforming their minds, about how they handle situations in society.
“This programme is about transforming Nigerian youth so that we could have a better society from the current one we are having,” she said.
