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Ooni of Ife Urges Traditional Leaders To Support Youth Empowerment

The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, has challenged ‎other monarchs across the globe to be dedicated towards youth empowerment in their various communities, so … Continue reading Ooni of Ife Urges Traditional Leaders To Support Youth Empowerment


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A file photo of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi.

Ooni of Ife, youth empowermentThe Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, has challenged ‎other monarchs across the globe to be dedicated towards youth empowerment in their various communities, so as to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country.

Oba Ogunwusi said this at the signing of a one billion Naira Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), between the ‎House of Oduduwa and the Bank of Industry, (BoI), which would provide loan facilities to both women and youths in Ile-Ife. Osun state.
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Prominent among the features of the MoU is the provision of one billion Naira loan at an interest rate of 7.5 % to the beneficiaries.

Oba Ogunwusi signed for the House of Oduduwa, while the Acting Managing Director of ‎BoI, Mr Waheed Olagunju, represented the financial institution.

The monarch emphasized the need to get youths empowered, saying that it was necessary for the nation’s continuous growth.

According to him, “I challenge monarchs across the country to be dedicated to developing youths in their communities.”

He said, “I won’t mind going hungry to empower the youths. If the youths of today are empowered, many generations will benefit from them and poverty will be abolished.

“Today’s event is another giant step in the history of Ile-Ife. We are moulding the future of our youths in the areas of agriculture and agro-allied industry.

Therefore, “I put a challenge to other monarch’s to engage in community partnership. We should stop relying on government. There are so many initiatives that community leaders can tap into.

ooni-of-ife-mou“Community leaders should go into partnership with multinational companies and financial institutions to benefit these people.

“This one billion Naira funding will obviously help the youth of the entire House of Oduduwa and beyond. This is a very good template that should be emulated by others. As monarchs, we should think of what we can do for our people and support government in its empowerment moves.

“Government at all levels should set up a body that will particularly focus on local contents initiative. The body should also be responsible for quality assurance and‎ control. With this, over 60% contracts will have local input.”

On his part, Waheed Olagunju explained that the initiative was aimed at reducing youth unemployment in communities.

According to him, a substantial part of the loan would be disbursed to women and businesses that show high sustainability, agriculture, solid minerals and services, especially those who deal in Made in Nigeria Goods.

He said, “We have been partnering with multinational and corporate companies, but today we are collaborating with traditional rulers. These are people who have access to the grassroots.

He stressed that partnering with them is a way of ‎democratizing entrepreneurship.

“We identify areas in which communities have comparative advantages and invest in them.

Explaining further he said: “The beneficiaries will be selected using the world best practices. For this edition, about 15 to 20% of them will be those who deal in local products. ‎We are working with the entrepreneurship centre of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

“Applications are expected to be submitted and a joint committee of BoI team, the Oduduwa House and OAU team would assess it.

“They are to be monitored by members of the committee and elders, especially the traditional rulers. We estimate that about 5,000 youths will benefit from this,” he said.

Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer of Hephzibah Network, Olamide Awosunle‎, estimated that with the loan, Ile-Ife would begin to supply food to South-West states.

“This is to complement the Agro-prenuership Summit and it will help to grow Ile-Ife and south Western Nigeria.

“In a short time, Ile-Ife will be ‎feeding the whole nation and South West states especially will depend on Ile-Ife to get food,” ‎Mr Awosunle stated.