Ado-Odo/Ota Council Chair Enjoins Youth To Engage In Productive Initiatives

 Ado-Odo/Ota Council Chair Tasks Youth On Productive Initiatives 

By OYINDUNSOLA FALEYE, Ota

Newly elected Chairman of Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government, Ogun State, Sheriff Adewale Musa, has enjoined youth in the council area to engage in good productive initiatives for the purpose of developing themselves and improving their society.

Speaking during the celebration of this year World Clean-Up Day at New Prestigious Arena, of St. Michaels Nursery & Pry School, Ota, the Council boss said people would always be glad to associate with those who have values to add in the society.

The Chairman was commenting on the activities of the Convener of Sango Clean-Up and Founder of Sam Clean Initiative, Samuel Adebayo, a 21-year-old student of National Open University who took it upon himself to clean his environment without the aid of government.

“The problem is people are conditioned to the thinking that only material things that bring immediate monetary gains can make them to excel.

“It is our collective responsibility to move away from thinking that only material things can make us great. 

“We need to move away from that social menace of the mindset that it is only anything that can give us immediate monetary gains can make us great.  But we can make a mark in whatever area we choose and the society will be happy to associate with us and benefit from our action”, he said.

The Onijana of Ijana-Ota, Oba Clement Olusegun Akinyemi, representing Olota, Oba Abdukabir Obalanlenge, expressed his delight for the presence of the youth at the occasion, saying he was highly gratified “and it assures me our future in this society is secured”.

“We will try as much as possible to encourage others, older or younger ones to emulate these young ones, because the success of these youth is the success of all of us.  It is high time we started thinking in the right direction. The old belief that government will do this or that for us should change. If we fall sick, is it the government that will buy paracetamol for us to get well? 

“This is the time to rise to the challenges of our time, do things that will encourage good living.  When we see young ones going in the right direction, we should not keep quiet, we should encourage them so that they can do more.  We should not wait till they go the bad way before we start correcting them. 

“We should praise them when they do good things. I will try as much as possible to educate the older ones to encourage and assist these young ones.  I am sure if they call on us at any time, we will be delighted to render assistance in whatever way required from us”, the traditional ruler said.

Speaking in the same vein, Comrade Ajeigbe Oluwafemi, Assistant Youth Leader, APC, Ado-Odo/Otasaid “we are newly elected APC youth leaders of various wards in Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area. This stuff is all over the world.  We need to support youth like Sam Adebayo.  So when he requested for our assistance we promised to honour him and support him with our presence. We encouraged all youth leaders from various wards to be here today as a sign of our support and solidarity. These include Iju, Ota 1, Ota 2, Ota 3 and Sango. 

“I truly love the programme.  It is such a programme that demonstrates that youth in politics are not thugs.  This programme differentiates between the thugs and the Youth. My advice to the youth is they should be seen in their professional callings and stop being seen as thugs that have no means of living” the party youth leader said.

In an exclusive interview with TheCaveat.info, Adebayo Samuel, Convener of Sango Clean-Up and Founder of Sam Clean Initiative bares his mind on his new project called “Pet For Schools”:

“The initiative was borne out my in-depth passion for cleaning up environment. When I was indoor, I was thinking of the kind of change agent or initiative I could bring to my environment for better development. So, I started to gather young ones like me who share the same passion for the environment. 

“We started our cleaning up at Sango Under bridge with over 120 volunteers in 2019, to celebrate the World Clean-Up Day done in about 180 countries all over the world with over 20 million people engaged in this.  We did the last clean-up at Oju-Ore with the office of the Majority Leader and C-Way company supporting us.  Here we are in 2021 doing World Clean-Up Day in Ota.

“Besides, we are using this opportunity to launch a project tagged: “Pet For Schools”.  This is a project targeted at turning plastic wastes to wealth, and other things you could easily throw away.  

“We want to use the proceeds generated from this to help students whose parents are of low-income earners to get school materials, books, etc. for them, so that there would be no financial impediments against their struggling to get education. This year our Motto for the project is “Your Waste, Their Knowledge”.

“We want people to know that before they decide to throw away their waste, they should think of the child that does not have books, school uniform, and someone who can convert it to wealth for the child to get knowledge.  This is why we are trying to brink this initiative to the environment so that people can see that these wastes are not just wastes but resources that can benefit other people.

“We are able to do this through assistance of local government authority in Ado-Odo/Ota, individuals and groups who have been assisting us morally and financially.  We tried to include members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in this year World Clean-Up Day activities because they too are youth who could go to their environments and make a change after their service.

On how he got the inspiration to embark upon the initiative, Adebayo said:

“I am Church Boy.  My inspiration came from the Holy Spirit and from my experience in the church cleaning department. I advise the youth to start thinking of bringing value to their society, and engage in changes that can make their environment better. 

“Because of this little thing I am doing, I was privileged to meet great and important personalities, including the Olota of Ota, Majority Leader of the state House of Assembly, the newly elected Ado-Odo/Ota Local government Chairman, Hon. Sheriff Adewale Musa, directors of some companies.

“You must have value to meet with these people.  The question is what value do you have. Everybody has his own value, waiting to be developed. I advise youth, like me to try doing something that have value for people to celebrate you.  The world is waiting for you”, he said.