Lawmaker urges youths to shun cultism, embrace excellence

The lawmaker representing Ikorodu Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Babajimi Benson, has charged youths to strive toward achieving excellence in their various endeavours and shun cultism.

Addressing journalists during a two-day lecture series organized under the auspices of his foundation, iCare initiative in Ikorodu, he noted that cultism thrives when the youth feel there is no hope.

He said the programme was to equip the youth of his constituency with the knowledge to make them positively impact the society.

Benson said, “This program was put together to make youths in my constituency to be adequately ready for tomorrow. A lot of investments is coming to my constituency so we need to upscale the skills and quality of our residents so that they would be ready to tap into that wave of opportunities coming soon.

“We brought guest speakers like the Chief Executive Officer of Nairabet, Akin Alabi, The Catalyst, Lanre Olusola, The Director-General, iCARE Foundation, Muyideen Sanwoola, Dr Fatai Abatan, Otunba Ganiyu Abiru, Bayo Oteju, and many others to train our youths, so that their skills will be sharpened to be able to engage tomorrow adequately.

“We are selling to the youths, the Ikorodu of tomorrow, which will accommodate them and make them prosperous. Through this program, we are drawing the youths out so that they can see that there is hope. Cultism thrives when the youth feels that there is no hope, so, when they don’t have a job or have nothing to do, through this kind of lecture series, we can change their orientation and show them the bigger picture to make them believe that tomorrow is promising.”

One of the guest speakers, Akin Alabi, while delivering his lecture, charged the youths to always practice the act of giving and urged them to be selfless in their dealings.

“If you want a lot of reward, doing things for people that are above you is going to help you a lot, because that is how you are going to differentiate yourself from thousands of other people that are asking them for favour. So, when such a person misses your call, he is going to call you back because he knows that this person is not just asking like everyone else, this person is contributing to my life,” Alabi said.

During his speech, Sanwoola said, “We are trying to get the Ikorodu youth to be able to compete globally; to be able to see the different types of leadership that we have and to be able to be out there changing the narratives about Ikorodu youths and indigene as a whole. Our goal is to build the leaders of tomorrow and to do that, we need to give them pathways to get there.

“As for cultism, it is a national menace, and to use technology to change the mindset of young ones, the social media should be harnessed to create campaigns that paint cultism bad. The Ministry of Youth and Sports both at the federal, state and local levels should also create grass-root campaigns that show the dangers of cultism, show images that nobody will want to see and let them know that those images are the result of cultism. The menace can be curbed that way.”