Youths have been advised to be patient with their academic pursuits and vocations, as well as to avoid the rush for quick fame and wealth acquisition.
Executive Director, The Clinic Foundation, Tosin Oladimeji-Ladipo gave the advice during a one-day youth programme tagged ‘The King In You,” organised by her Foundation in Lagos.
Ladipo observed that a lot of youths are now more interested in making quick wealth and fame without hard work, which according to her may be detrimental to their souls.
“Everyone in life has to go through the waiting period, which is usually seen as very tedious. It really pays to wait, just don’t rush to do things; don’t feel pressured to do anything. Just wait and allow God to work through you. At the waiting period, everything will find expression out of you,” she said.
While reminding parents that they have a role to play in the lives of their children by showing examples, Oladimeji-Ladipo said: “Teach your children to do the right things and always remember to lead by example because children learn from what they see their parents do. Also, always pray for them.”
On her part, the Minister of Youths, State of African Diaspora (SOAD) and Director, GNEC-Liaising for Global NGO to the United Nations (UN), Olasubomi Iginla-Aina said that the event was to emphasise service, as well as re-orientate the young people that there is a time to serve and a time to emerge.
She regretted that many youths are running away from tribal trades in Nigeria such as adire making, aso-oke, tie-and die, among the Yorubas, and the Igbo trade apprenticeship scheme, making it difficult to have more young people to train and hand-over businesses to.
She said: “Young people do not want to learn trades any more, they just want to emerge and become. They want to engage in yahoo business. It’s a common thing among the youths.
“If there is no new generation to pass on the trades to, who becomes the next adire producer, or the next aso-oke producer for the Yoruba tribal trade and who will the Igbo businesses be passed on to?”
Iginla-AIna, who is a member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, while emphasising the need for youths to imbibe the culture of service, said: “There is a time to serve and a time to emerge. Don’t mix the two up; it is a process which has to be completed. One is not isolated from the other. They work together to complement each other. There is a process which should not be jumped. If you do so, then you are not doing things correctly.”
To activate the king in the youths, Iginla-Aina advised parents not to shy away from their responsibility of parenting, “because they have a lot to instill in the young people at their formative age when they can still grab things in and not depart from it in the nearest future.”
She said: “We must go to the root of parenting. It starts with parenting and schools. The schools need to be more involved in teaching children at a very young age to begin to re-orientate, helping them to understand how things truly work.”
For those who have passed the formative period, Iginla-Aina advised that they need to have a reorientation of their minds.
“They need to understand and believe in themselves irrespective of what anyone feels about them.”
Some of the youths who spoke during the programme commended the organisers of the event, describing it as an eye opener.
