The Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Ipalibo Harry Banigo, has called on youth to be a blessing not only to themselves and their generation but also to Rivers State.
The deputy governor stated this during a special thanksgiving service to flag-off the 2017 Harvest and the commemoration of the 61st Anniversary of the Anglican Youth Fellowship at St. Cyprian’s Anglican Church in Port Harcourt, yesterday.
Banigo said the Governor Nyesom Wike-led administration has the political will and commitment to improve the standard of education in the state because education is a tool to emancipate the youth, while the word of God helps to renew the mindset of the people.
“This is why the government is renovating over 174 primary schools through the Universal Basic Education Board, renovation of secondary, schools establishment of a medical school for the first time in the Rivers State University as well as the upgrading of facilities of the various tertiary institutions to ensure full accreditation of their courses and programmes”, Banigo said.
According to her, the establishment of the Port Harcourt Training and Vocational Centre (TVC)   in collaboration with a German non-governmental organisation was done deliberately to empower youth with a flair for technical subjects to acquire skills that will make them gainfully employed.
The deputy governor, who advised youth to eschew violence, cultism, gangsterism, kidnapping and other social vices, said such characters were alien to Rivers State and will do them no good.
“When I was the female president of the Boys Brigade between 1997 and 1999, I travelled through the length and breadth of the old Rivers State, which includes Bayelsa now, the kind of things I see our youth doing now is very strange”, Banigo stressed.
According to her, “the Rivers State Government is determined to put an end to cultism and gangsterism.”
To this end, she said government was collaborating with an NGO to take the campaign against the use of illicit drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other hard drugs to the nooks and crannies of the state to put an end to drug abuse.
The deputy governor said the Almighty God has predestined the youth for a purpose, and they must strive hard to fulfil that purpose by exhibiting the right attitude at all times because after all is said and done it is their attitude that will determine if they would succeed in life or not.
“Let us change our attitude and embrace work, do not despise the days of little beginning, whatever your hands find to do please do it. I want to see the young ones show the way, run with the vision and be a blessing to your selves, your communities, your generation, and Rivers State”, Banigo stressed.
The deputy governor, who expressed delight with the scholarship programme set up by the Anglican Youth Fellowship, also donated to the scheme, and advised them to put up a mechanism to make it sustainable.
She further advised them to ensure that only brilliant indigent students benefit from the scholarship scheme to make it have the desired impact.
“Let it touch the lives of brilliant indigent students who merit it, otherwise the aim will be defeated”, she quipped.
Earlier in this sermon, Rev. Canon John Ubulom, who spoke on the theme, “Be a Blessing to others”, declared that man was a carrier of God’s divine blessings and favour which are inherent in them.
He stated that for anyone to be a blessing to others, he must first submit himself to God through faith, noting that as humans, it was impossible to bless other people without yielding to God first.