The Arole Oduduwa & Ooni of Ife, Ooni Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II, on Friday declared the Royal Young Leadership Forum (RAYLF), 2021; a youth development and capacity building initiative open.
Opening the 14-day event which is in its second year before journalists during a press conference at the Ile Oodua Palace of Ife, Ooni Ogunwusi explained that the latest edition is premised on the progress achieved in 2020.
Among other things, the edition is more committed to upholding its fundamental objective of breaking protocols and barriers impeding youth development especially the growth of young starters in the public and private sectors of the country.
“Most of our plans last year were truncated by the COVID-19 pandemic which shut down the entire world after our trip to Ghana where I took some youth leaders for a meet-and-greet with critical stakeholders early last year.
“The meet-and-greet strategy was created to achieve the targeted goals of RAYLF, especially in the creation and sustainance of dependable connection for our youth leaders. It helps us to bring them closer to power and it has been yielding results.
“Like the Asian Tiggers that led the Socio-Economic and political revolution in the Asian world, our focus is to create young leaders and call ours the African Leopards because leopard is the bravest of all animals in the jungle.” The Ooni said.
Ooni Ogunwusi who is the Co-chairman of the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria (NCTRN), stressed that his initiative is currently working on engaging concerned institutions in the country for the removal of discriminations like age, faith and tribe among others and equally stop demanding tax from pioneer starters who are mostly young persons.
“Recently, I visited the newly constructed Dangote refinery with some young leaders where there eyes were opened to how things are done on a larger scale. That is a tip of the iceberg, we have identified countries like Uganda and others achieving economic breakthrough on how our youths can learn how to bring prosperity to our dear nation.
On the type of youths being picked for the programme, Ooni Ogunwusi revealed that proper screening is the basis for selection which helps to prevent inclusion of unscrupulous elements like internet fraudsters and others.