Oyo town is rated with the highest cases of cultism and gangsterism among youths following the growing cases of unemployment and redundancy, according to police source.
According to the source, the community which is among the major towns in the pacesetter state, is renowned for social vices resulting from peer pressure, and youth unemployment.
Speaking at the venue of a quiz competition, organised by Oyo Nexus Club, held at the Federal School of Survey, Oyo, the Rector Federal School of Survey, an associate professor, Dupe Nihilola Olayinka, who was the chairman of the occasion, said unless the youths are meaningfully engaged, they would continue to be involved in social vices.
She quoted the police officers in charge of Oyo town, as saying that the town had the highest cases of cultism and gangsterism in the state.
NaijaExaminer quoted her as saying that “I am here today to witness the annual Oyo Nexus Club Debate Competition for secondary school students in Oyo. You see, the members of the club including myself grew out up in Oyo and we used to attend all these educational programmes, and I will see it as a pay back time for the members of the club.
”You see, I had interaction recently with the police officers in Oyo and they were shocked that it is in Oyo town that they had highest cases of cultism, gangsterism and all that. And one of the ways of solving these problems is to engage our youths educationally. And one of such areas is sports and mostly debate, that Oyo Nexus Club is organizing today. Its taking the students off the streets letting them think and enable them to communicate constructively and that is what i just witnessed today as the chairman of the occasion. And I will like to implore them to continue doing what they are doing and to look for other ways, apart from this, to engage the youths within the town,” she stated.
About 13 students of different secondary schools in Oyo who participated in the annual quiz competition have emerged lucky winners of scholarship and cash prizes to further university education of their choice.
The quiz competition, put together by young men and women under the umbrella of Oyo Nexus Club , was conceptualised by individuals who schooled and grew up together in Oyo, using their resources to assist the poor, but brilliant students to fulfill their dreams of attend university.
Participants, drawn from over 20 secondary schools in Oyo, comprised of four best students from each of the schools, mainly from sciences, arts, and commercial subjects.
Also in his remarks, the President of the Oyo Nexus Club , Mr. Muideen Olatunji narrated what let to the establishment of the Club and what it sets out to achieve.
He said that the major objective of setting up the club, is to give back to the society which made them, and to assist brilliant and intelligent students who came from poor background to further their education.
According to him, what we want to achieve is to help bring these students together, to keep them busy and nurture their talents and brilliance so that they can continue to do well in the pursuit of their education.
”They did say because of funds, they cannot further their education, we don’t want to see more of that. Some of these kids, though from public schools, they were so brilliant, so intelligent and we dont what such ones to rotten away,” he stated.
The winners of the quiz competition, initially went home with cash prizes of N50,000, N40,000, N25,000, and N20,000 for first, second , and third positions respectively.
The cash prizes, according to the President of the Club, were to help them to obtain WAEC, NECO and JAMB forms and also assist in buying books in preparation for the exams.
He said ”The first one was from 16 secondary schools, and from that programme, we had three students that won our scholarship. And we paid for the WAEC, JAMB, and NECO exams and we also bought books for them and they did very well in their exams.
”And followed up until we are sure they got admissions into the universities. So, we sponsored them, as they won our scholarship . And as at today we still follow them up. The three of them did very well in their university, and in their first year, the least one is the one that had 4.3, the others had 4.7, 4.8 GP. Last year we did the second edition and we had four winners.
“And today, is our third edition, and we are hopeful to have more beneficiaries coming out of today’s program too to join other students already enjoying our scholarship.”
Related
