By Jide Olaniran
In his governance style and youth friendly nature, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu had a one day interactive session with the representatives of students in tertiary institutions in the state a few months ago. The meeting was necessary to have a direct interface with young people who are a critical stakeholder in building a greater Lagos of our dream.
At the meeting, the students got more than they bargained for as the governor used the forum to announce an increase in the bursary allowance for students of the state origin from N50,000 to N60,000; just as he announced the state scholarship grant for both indigene and non-indigene students of the state from N200,000 to N225,000.
Sanwo-Olu also appointed four former leaders of the student union government in the state tertiary institutions as special advisers. The appointees are: Eniola Opeyemi who is now the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Basic and Secondary Education; Kayode Samuel, Giwa Moor and Adeola Adewunmi.
These appointments followed a request by the Chairman of the state chapter of the National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS), Lekan Alimi that students union should have representatives in government to interface between the government and the students representatives.
While reacting to the request ,the governor said “the students are important stakeholder in governance of Lagos State“, urging them to believe in themselves just as he displayed his responsive nature by announcing the appointment of those former student leaders to be part his government – sign of a Governor that listens .
Education, they say, is the best legacy and a society that values education is no doubt building a productive culture that is critical to national development. In Lagos no milestone achieved by any of the stakeholders in the education sector will go unnoticed or rewarded as the Sanwo-Olu led administration has built a culture of reward which has seen teachers, pupils , students and lecturers get rewarded for exceptional performance. Arecent case is the governor’s reward of N10 million to Olaniyi Mubaraq Olawale of the Accounting Education department at the Lagos State University 27th convocation and 40th anniversary.
Olawale was the best graduating student with a CGPA of 4.98. The gesture would go a long way to motivate young people to take their academic serious and know that Lagos rewards academic excellence as a centre of excellence.
The foundation for most of these academic excellence are laid by deliberate policies and programmes anchored on the T.H.E.M.E.S + agenda of the government which has seen 18,912 mobile learning devices distributed to Senior Secondary 2 students across the six education districts in the state.
Over 3,000 fresh graduate teachers recruited mostly young graduates (both STEM and General subjects) for effective teaching / learning delivery. This year alone N1.6 billion was approved and paid as registration fees and other sundry costs for 58,188 SS3 students writing the West Africa School Certificate Examination. While 2,085 students have completed technical education and 85% of the graduates are now self-employed.
As a state that is home to the biggest technology hub in West Africa driven by young people, the Sanwo-Olu administration has funded about 80 innovative start upsbetween 2020 and 2024; all through the state Science Research and Innovation Council. These includedstartups in agritech , e-commerce and retail, FinTech ,climate change ,circular economy and many other verticals.
In all, 129 vouchers were issued to owners of tech startups under the innovation driven enterprise programme ‘Lagos Innovates’ while 71 early stage startups has been incubated under the idea Hub with over N1 billion disbursed as seed money and Hub loans .
Nothing shows that governance in Lagos is youth centric like the recent gesture of Sanwo-Olu at the National Youth Service Corp orientation camp in Iyana-Ipaja. The governor, who was a special guest at the end of the orientation camp exercise for the corps members,announced that he would approve N5 billion for the construction of a permanent orientation camp for the National Youth Service Corps in Lagos. He also pledged N100,000 each as a gift to the reported 4,254 members of the Batch B Stream 1. In the words of the governor: “It will be made available in your account. Your director will credit you. Don’t worry, this is how we do in Lagos”. He also promised the best 100 corps membes of automatic employment in the state public service.
“Because we are a performance driven government and we’re sensitive to what is expected of every one of you, I will be monitoring this particular batch .This particular batch is now my home, at the end of your time ,I will pick the best 100 corps members out of this batch. They will get automatic employment in the neighbourhoodstate public service,“ he said.
For the youth corps members, they might have heard about the Sanwo-Olu standards. But now they are experiencing it, just like other youths in the state.