FOLLOWERSHIP SYMPOSIUM: Guest Speakers Advocates For More Private Driven Businesses and Participation In Politics

By Emmanuel Adeniran Guests Speakers at the 2019 Followership Symposium held in Akure, the Ondo State Capital on Saturday has advocated for more private driven businesses to strive and increase the participations of young and vibrant Nigerians in politics to enable their future and that of the generations yet unborn to be well guaranteed and secured. The followership symposium is a yearly gathering of young Nigerians creating a forum to brainstorm and fashion out means of educating, sensitising and sharing ideas on how to improve young people physical and economic wellbeing in the Nigeria society of today. Welcoming the participants at the event, the Convener of the Followership Symposium 2019, Mr. Akinbulumo Oluwatosin urged them to take full advantage of the Symposium to interact with the arrays of Guests Speakers invited to speak in order to learn and grow. The Convener, Mr. Akinbulumo Oluwatosin challenged the delegates to take complete ownership of their future by holding no one accountable for their past failures but only themselves as those responsible. He stressed that the Followership Symposium is targeted at driving the participants to success by equipping them with adequate knowledge and skills that will enable them identify opportunities, manage their crisis, understand governance and interprets public policies. He advised them to hold their future intact by keeping off the vultures around their lives and taking ownership of their destinies with enough determination, commitment and resolute. Speaking at the Followership Symposium, one of the guests speakers at the forum, Mr. Adeyemi Feyisade Charles, the Chief Executive Officer of CHALE INSTITUTE and Acadenic/Director of African Students for Liberty based in Lagos State called on the society, the young people and the Nigeria government to join hands together to fight the growing menace called Poverty. Feyisade counselled young Nigerians to take responsibilities for their challenges and check themselves and their communities for talent and opportunities. He called on the Federal Government to tackle the power problem been faced in the Country at the moment by allowing every business minded individuals in the Country who has the means of flowing personal businesses to be empowered through proper legislations and laws so as to generates more jobs opportunities. Feyisade advised the Nigeria government to allow private people own Power Plants as a way to permanently solve the electricity problems bedevilling the Country. In his words, he said: “the power sector needs to be urgently privatised and decentralized. The process of the recapitalisation of the power sector that the government is proposing needs to be urgently accelerated. We need a situation where private people can own power plants, transmits, distributes and sells to the Consumers. If we have that situation in a few years, the power problems facing the Country will be solved. This will not stop the government from having its own power plants and ensuring that the private people who intends to establish it are well regulated and controlled just like we have in the Oil sector. Imagine what Nigerians will be facing if there are no private filling stations in the Country today. Life would have been very hectic for Nigerians buying fuel”. Feyisade equally called on the government to remove the bottlenecks, regulations and laws preventing private people from floating power plants in the Country. He urged the government to take this bold step to encourage private individuals to strive since they will be made to pay taxes into the coffers of the government. Government should allow the people to create the wealth that the Country would live and survive upon. He advised the Nigeria government to follow the American model that helps their economy to develop and grow. In another session, Mr. Zadok Akintoye, the Director of Media and Publicity for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State as well as the Executive Director, Centre of Advocacy and Protection of Education on Democracy counselled young adults to consider their abilities and strengths before venturing into politics. Akintoye expressed sadness over the manner in which the values and cultural heritage of Nigeria have been lost to the British. He frowned at how Nigerians have adopted foreign languages in exchange for theirs. “Akintoye maintained that Nigerians are no longer willing to make sacrifices upon which the Nigeria Democracy will work and strive. “The earlier we begin to get brilliant young people into politics, the better it will be for the Nigeria Democracy”. Nigerians have become British citizens because Nigeria is the only Country who adopts foreign languages as its own. Nigeria will only work when we do away with things that seems to erode away our culture and heritage. Nigeria was created to fail and not to work. The values Nigerians put on honesty are very low. Poverty is one of the tools by which the British governs the black race. Nigeria’s Democracy is a big time conspiracy”. Mr. Kayode Ajomale, an expert in Business Intelligent and Co-Founder, IStudio in Akure while delivering his lecture at the Followership Symposium explained that patience is a tool needed to excel in business. He defined doubt as a tool used to undermine the truth and maintained that the reason why opportunities are often lost are as a result of our bias. He counselled young adults to always check on their bias on issues relating to gender, ethnicity and religiosity. Ajomale urged young people to put their brain to work by thinking well before taking decisions. He advised young adults against making decisions on a surface level. “Making rash decisions without asking questions will lead to nowhere”. He also urged and counselled the people to see opportunities and make use of them. “I urged you to always dig deeper and avail people how they can see and access opportunities even when it is not visible”. Mrs. Francisca Onyinye Ogunlade, the Convener of the Beauty and Bride Exhibitions, Founder of Eftinzz Outfits and Akadani Innovations who is the only female guest speaker at the 2019 Followership Symposium in her submission, stated that “the task of passing across messages that will raise the hopes of others towards their challenges of life is her own major concern”. She spoke on the topic titled: “Rise Above the Limits: Beyond the Present”. Francisca recounted how she was involved in a ghastly motor accident which nearly took away her life but divine intervention from God Almighty kept her alive. She explained the need for the people to break the limits around them and achieve their set goals and objectives. She also urged the participants at the event to be strong, ready and willing to face their challenges squarely as she was also able to face her own and overcome after almost loosing one of her eye to the ghastly motor accident about four years ago.