Project One Production (POP), a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), has disclosed plans to engage stakeholders in educational sector towards preparing grounds for introduction of Politics Clubs in secondary schools in the country.
Its Executive Director, Mrs Bisayo Busari-Akinnadeju disclosed this Wednesday in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja.
According to Busari-Akinnadeju the clubs are targeted at sensistising students on the need to take up politics as career after leaving school.
She said the “Not-Too-Young-To-Run’ law is not enough to change the narratives in Nigerian politics, stressing that it is also important to set the political stage for contesting elective positions in schools among students.
“We must begin to inculcate and groom the right leadership qualities from secondary school before tertiary institutions, because these are the students that will soon come out to leverage on the Not-Too-Young-To-Run Act.
“We believe they are the upcoming generation that will be saddled with the responsibilities of changing the long lived narrative that `politics is a dirty game’.
“If politics is a dirty game as we have been made to believe, then why the fighting and warring against one another after demonising it.
“We see that it is the same set of people demonising politics that are refusing to exit political positions, even with little or no achievements recorded in their names as representatives of the people.
“Eventually when they choose to leave against their will, they still end up putting their own children and wards to take over from them,’’ she said.
The executive director said that with the `Not-Too-Young-To-Run Act’ and the eventual introduction of the politics clubs in schools, the narratives would definitely change and Nigerian political space would be better.
She said that there are so many great young minds that when properly guided on how to represent the interest of the people, would turn out to be excellent leaders in the future.
She urged parents and guardians to give advice and guide their children in relation to their future ambitions and not discourage them from aspiring to be politicians, musicians or even actors.
“Parents and guardians must try to guide their children and wards with the right set of moral values, ethics and principles to turn out to be great personalities in future.
“They must carefully identify areas of interest and cautiously take note of the leadership potentials in their children,’’ she said.
Busari-Akinnadeju said that once the leadership potentials and qualities are discovered in a child, it is up to the child’s parents, guardians and even teachers to groom him into exploiting the full potentials of those qualities.
She cautioned against shaming and abusing children who have identified politics as a career path as it is discouraging and may reduce the child’s confidence.
“We have heard of cases where a child would say he or she wants to be a politician and the parents would refer to such child as `a thief’.
“This is wrong. We must encourage every child to become whatever he or she wants to be, especially children who stand out or have been identified to have certain potentials and qualities of leadership,’’ she said.
Project One Production is a non-profit making organisation, instilling in youths right leadership and political values appropriate for national development through conferences, campaigns and seminars.
