The lawmaker representing Surulere constituency at the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Desmond Olusola Elliot, has said he has leant to be more committed to youth development through the #EndSARS protest.
Hon. Desmond who was speaking at the Teslim Balogun Stadium on Saturday during the Surulere Farmfare organised by Coalition of Youths in conjunction with African Farmer said youth empowerment through agriculture is one of the ways to go.
“If there is any lesson the #EndSARS protest has taught us it is to focus more on youths’ empowerment because the youths used the protest to also vent their anger about unemployment and other needs beyond just police brutality.
“We have an army of unemployed youths in Nigeria, not necessarily because they don’t want to work but because there is nothing for them to do, many of them lack education and basic skills due to no fault of theirs.
“What you are seeing today, the Farmfare is one of our efforts to get the youths engaged in doing something. You can see them displaying their farm produce and selling at cheaper price, it has been so rewarding for them as you have heard from them, he stated.
Speaking further on youths’ empowerment through agriculture, he said, “these are youths doing well in their agribusiness, they have been able to get over the challenge of non available of arable land for farming which is a general problem in Lagos and not just Surulere by going to neighbouring states to farm.
Some of them even use the small portion in their compound for gardening and this is what I want to encourage us all to be doing, we can always convert that little space to small garden to grow leaves and other organic foods” Hon. Desmond advised.
The youths of Surulere who were highly elated with Hon. Eliot’s efforts at empowering youths in education, skill acquisition and others welfare programmes could not hide their joy as they celebrated the movie star turned politician.
The high point of the even was the presentation of an award of excellence to the lawmaker by the Igbo community in Surulere for a job well done, to which Hon. Elliot in his response said was one of his best awards ever as a politician.
