Youth tasked on imbibing transformative leadership skills

By Stanley Onyekwere

Youth have been enjoined to be innovative and transformative in their quest to influence strategic interventions that can effectively address the problems bedeviling their society.

Also, the youth were urged to always seek to understand some of the policies and laws that affects the development of the society.

Our correspondent reports that the charge was handled down to the youth at the 4th Model ECOWAS Summit (MES) Commission, held recently in Abuja.

Speaking at the two-day event, President of the 4th MES Commission, Abiodun Essiet, said youth as future leaders, should always be looking inwards to see how they can collectively solve problems in the society.

Essiet, explained that the Summit, with one and fifty youth drawn from across the fifteen ECOWAS countries, focuses on how to groom the youth to be problem solvers and leaders who are transformative; thinking about the future and how to influence change.

According to her, “In the next year 2050, most of the population of Africa will be youth, then we maybe taking some of the leadership positions by that time, but the youth need to be prepared to understand some of the policies and laws that affect us as a region.

“Abuja is hosting the summit for the first time, the three other editions were held in Accra, Ghana.The Summit is all about bringing youth across the ECOWAS region together to deliberate on issues that affect the region.

“It’s also to help in bringing member states together to understand the issues and have a common ground, removing every boundaries within, and helping to relate well  economic wise, and see how to bring about the development of the region.

“It is the first we are bringing it to Nigeria, because at the last summit, myself as the President of Nigeria delegates, representing the country, won the best delegate that year.

“So, we are looking forward to see how we can also score some of our youth, to have the best delegates from the different youth representing different countries to know where we are taking the next summit.”