I was glad when i recieved a call that the planned presidential roundtable on youth in agriculture will finally be held on the 19th of june 2006. It had taken the Ministry of youth almost six months to pin down a date with Mr. President. Although the notice was short, i was more than prepared for the meeting. The day before, we had just concluded an online discussion on youth in Agriculture, the recommendation were expected to be the main thrust of our presentation at the roundtable.
we got to the venue of the meeting (state house) and discovered that a lot of things had gone wrong. Someone has impersonated me, he has arrived early, brandishing a letter of invitation and claiming to be Rotimi olawale, he was allowed into the villa. I arrived with my team several minutes later only to be told that one Rotimi Olawale has been admitted into the council chambers.
Couple of arguments later, the impersonator was succesfully fished out of the chambers and luck ran out on him.
I almost forgot! The crowd we met outside the meeting hall was wow! A mixture of student union activists, some men and women in their 40s and 50s (claiming to be young people, i guess) littered the entrance all claiming to have been invited for the meeting.
After the initial trouble we made our way into the council chamber, found seats and waited for the arrival of Mr. President.
Moments later, he was ushered in,and what soon turned out to be a disastrous meeting (personal opinion) commenced.
After a little briefing from the president, whose first comment was that there were many faces in the hall that do not look like young people, the president of the National Youth council spoke.
He took his time to explain to the whole gathering how Mr. president was God sent! and the best thing to happen to Nigeria since independence. He announced that after due deliberations, nigerian youths ahve agreed to name the proposed youth house in Abuja after the president. He also stepped forward and decorated the president as the life patron of Nigerian youths.
As if that was not enough, speaker upon speaker, took their time to rub it on our face that Mr. president is the best head of state, a loving father and all sorts, a speaker even went on to say that he is the best president south of sahara and north of limpopo.
there i sat in the hall, totally angry and confused, unknown to us, the agenda for the meeting has been thwarted and speakers have been pre-selected. Hauwa that was suppose to make a presentation on our ( Nigerian Youth Network on MDGs) behalf could not.
Soon, the speakers started demanding to be members of presidential committees, (they got some), some others demanded a bus for the National Youth council, approved says Mr. President, only few of the speakers remembered to include one or two youth problems or challenges in their discussions.
In response, Mr President who was pressed for time, promised that another presidential meeting on youth will hold soon. (this has been fixed for July 29). He also took his time to explain some of what his administration is doing or planning to do to curb unemployment, encourage youth in agriculture and also to encourage enterpreneurship.
Furthermore, Mr,. president released a sum of two million naira to be distributed to participants as transport fare to the over 200 participants.
Hours later, we heard...the money has been released and there was a big tussle on who should go home with the largest shareb (dont know who won), i was already on my way back to Ogbomoso and thinking on how to capture the next meeting from the forces of evil!
