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Chairman of the Ifako Ijaiye Local Government Area of Lagos State, Hon. Apostle Oloruntoba Oke has enjoined the youths to embrace skills acquisition and vocational trainings.
Oke made this call today in his office when the executives of the Ifako Ijaiye Community under the Strengthening Citizens Engagement in Electoral Processes (SCEEP) paid him a courtesy visit in his Oke-Ira, Lagos office.
Highlighting the one week empowerment program of his administration for the youths in the communities, Oke, who appreciated the visiting team said, “We are doing our best in the area of skills acquisition. Two weeks ago we ran a skills acquisition exercise for a whole week and we presented certificates to the successful participants.”
Continuing, the Chairman said, “We do this empowerment program every quarter because youth empowerment incidentally is a program on our agenda. We had a whole week community week and two days were set aside for empowerment program. There are no jobs anywhere but with skills acquisition people can create jobs for themselves.”
On other projects of the Local Government, Oke said there are projects the Council would have loved to do but due to non-availability of fund, it is unable to embark upon such. “There are projects the Local Government cannot embark upon without the intervention of the state government,” he added.
Mission of the team was to present a letter to the Chairman and appeal for the fixing of some roads in the Local Government Area.
Oke, an Apostle with the Cherubim and Seraphim Church said, “Politics is not an easy task. In the C&S Church, an Apostle is a senior rank. I am not just a Christian, I am also an Apostle. It is very difficult for a Christian to be in politics because so many terrible things happen in politics.”
Stating further, the Apostle and former Manager at the African Independent Television said, “I said in my Church last Sunday that we are in the world but we are not of the world. I did not become Chairman for material things. I had a good job at AIT I was in a managerial position. I had built my house, I had cars, so my reason for coming here is for development of the area.”
Going down memory lane, Oke, who was born in Ifako Ijaye where he also attended the African Church Secondary School, said he has witnessed the development of Ifako Ijaiye and all he wants to do is effect modern development. “I was born here and I attended the African Church School. I know the Local Government well, I know all these places when they were all bushes. My secondary school hostel is not far away so I am passionate about development of the Local Government.
“We don’t have all the resources to do everything on some of the needs so we have called out to the state government. I am going to present the letter you have brought to the governor. We are working and we are praying, the only reason we are here is because of development of our Local Government.”
The SCEEP project is coordinated by the International Press Centre and sponsored by Action Aid Nigeria, UKAID with the aim of sensitizing community residents to engage the government peacefully and intellectually in order to foster development of the grass roots.
