OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI GCFR, BY BABANGIDA RUMA

BY BABANGIDA RUMA , dated on JUNE 21, 2015

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI GCFR, BY BABANGIDA RUMA

Dear Mr. President,

I am delighted to extend my heartily congratulatory massage over your landslide victory in the recent concluded presidential poll, it is indeed a great success that represents a promising moment in Nigeria’s. History, and testimony to the renewed confidence which people of Nigeria have placed in you, to continue to chart the future course of our country Nigeria. I have a strong confidant that under your leadership, Nigeria will be a greater nation in the world. May Almighty Allah who has blessed Nigeria, grant you those who serve with you wisdom, strength and compassion in the coming years, amen.

Sir, I am particularly worried with the level of despair among the youth in Nigeria. we are all playing with our future if we cannot create conducive avenues for the youths to positively deploy their creativity, passion, and energies parents are struggling to raise their children with no apparent support from those in charge of our resources, and the community and the state offer no help to ensure the youths are provide for thousands of youth roam about with no hope.

Sir respectfully I call for you to create a Presidential Youth Council (PYC) to empower youth across the country, and to ensure that scarce federal youth programmes are directed toward where they can do the most good. As I said during World Youth Foundation (WYF) workshop only youth know’s their problems you can not bring a person with over sixty years and you think he can solve youth problems.

Now, more than ever, we need to make sure scarce federal resources for youth programs are directed where they can do the most good. The best source of information about which federally-funded youth programs are working, which programs are not, and how to improve them is the young people who receive the services. Young people are unencumbered by special interest groups they can share what needs to be done to ensure federal youth programs are both efficient and effective.

I deeply appreciative of the leadership you have shown in reaching out to young people through meeting after general elections.

A Presidential Youth Council would serve as an institutional structure to strengthen and complement such episodic events. Such an institutional structure is necessary to ensure consistent attention to youth engagement, to provide training to young people, and to allow sufficient time for productive working relationships to form between young people and senior administration officials. The Presidential Youth Council would reduce duplicative efforts. and it would expand the reach of your Office of Public Engagement, as each member of the Presidential Youth Council would engage thousands of young people across the country.

Secondly, I write respectfully to share my urgent call for your administration to focus on the issues of econnomic opportunity, Security and job creations while I recognize that our country has been going down by economic development I believe that job creation, economic development and economic empowerment are the most important issues facing our great nation. Accordingly, I urge the following:

1- that a comprehensive jobs programs be developed and executed by way of a partnership that includes government, the private sector and the nation’s non-profit community. This partnership must emphasize infrastructure and public works, broadband technology and energy, with a special focus on those communities where unemployment is and remains stubbornly and persistently high. This necessarily requires special attention to the nation’s urban communities where joblessness remains in double digits and economic suffering is widespread.

2- I urge an intense focus on children and youth educations I applaud your efforts as you promised during campaign about education but you must do more. We need a national policy to move the nation toward universal early childhood education. Other countries like china has implemented early childhood education as policy, so we cannot afford to lag behind.

Moreover, I urge an expansion of your efforts to make college and higher education more affordable by including a new emphasis on job training, workforce development and skills retraining for those citizens who do not choose college or who did not complete high school on time. There is a great-untapped potential in these citizens that must be unleashed to power the economic recovery.

3- Climate change Awareness, now days climate change issue is one of the key Agendas of international leaders. I am glad that you mention climate change in your Agendas so we need to Increase Climate Change Awareness through Environmental Education.

To build capacity of youth by facilitating the advancement of knowledge and experience sharing on climate change, its impacts, adaptation and mitigation measures through workshops, campaigns and community based projects by involving local communities and educational institutions.

To increase ‘climate literacy’ among the youth by effectively disseminating information about the impacts of climate change and the successful stories of climate change adaptation and mitigation (or combating climate change impacts).

Your Excellency, Mr. President I believe those outlined above are the most important facing the nation and I believe by solving them our nation will move forward.

Thank You Sir.

Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Yours Sincerely:

Babangida Ruma

Commonwealth Youth Ambassador For (Y-CAEV) Campaign in Nigeria.