Full Text of YALI Yobe Hub Coordinator’s Inauguration Speech

Assalamu alaykum
Good morning everyone,
I must thank you for joining our inauguration and once again for the confidence you have bestowed upon me and my team. We will insha Allah work hard to provide the youth with as many tools and opportunities we can throughout our tenure. It was my hope that we would all meet under one roof but the current global realities wouldn’t permit that. Insha Allah humanity will survive this.As your Coordinator, a great responsibility has been placed on my shoulders to steer my team and the Hub into serving the Yobe youth. This is not to tell you that we are taking you to the Promised Land, no land has been promised to the youth and nor will it come on a platter – but we can achieve anything we want if we set our targets, learn what we need to get there, work hard to get there but above all – remain united.

This we hope to achieve with a 5-point agenda that has been strategically created to get YALI working again.

1. First and foremost is the amendment of the constitution, a storm has clouded our election and this particular inauguration, and while it seems to have calmed and we have sailed out of it, we may still find ourselves in a constitutional crisis as there are lacunae in the Constitution. As a legal practitioner, I am quite aware that we wouldn’t get anywhere without a strong constitution to guide our affairs, check our excesses and to ensure we do not stray from the path that best serves the people. Therefore, the first item on the agenda on our first Executive Council meeting scheduled to hold later today would be the amendment of the constitution and the nomination of competent hands to handle it.

2. Secondly, we want to create and maintain a database of members of the Hub in a secure, efficient, and orderly manner. Accurate membership data will be needed to determine the scope of opportunities we can offer to our members, and to keep each and everyone one of us actively involved in our activities.

3. Thirdly, throughout our tenure, youths in Yobe State will be presented with and guided on the numerous opportunities in YALI, the American Embassy and in the United States. Our youths have not been accessing these opportunities, and this is not for want of talent or achievement in the three key areas considered for selection; Public management, Civic engagement, and Entrepreneurship but simply by being unaware that such opportunities exist. For instance, there was no fellow from Yobe at the 2019 Mandela Washington Fellowship and this year we have only a sole alternate candidate.

There are YALI tools and certificate courses designed to improve youths’ capacity. Some of these courses we hope to translate to Hausa Language in the hope it will be more accessible when the language barrier has been defeated.

Such opportunities would be provided with the sincerest sense of equality; minorities and disadvantaged groups would be given equal consideration.

4. Fourthly, YALI was created to train the next generation of African leaders, and one way to do that is to teach them leadership skills. We want take a step in that direction by collegiating YALI in all the secondary schools in Yobe State, both public and private. YALI Clubs in secondary schools will give our children an opportunity we never had – to have a solid foundation on which to learn the etiquette of leadership. This will contribute greatly to the development of these children and our communities. They will develop skills that will help them grow into active and responsible citizens that can solve community problems. Overall, these skills are easier to develop at a young age and that is what the YALI Clubs would do with the permission of parents and guardians.

5. Finally, this being the sophomore year of the Hub in Yobe State, we will also work in building valuable relationships with all stakeholders in the private and public sector. The opportunities we intend to create for the youth through entrepreneurship trainings especially in Corporate Agriculture can only be done through partnerships with those that have similar goals. We may have to partner with the government to help the young civil servants access the opportunities that are abound for those in the public sector.

Thank you.