Domestic Tourism: Bayelsa to Collaborate With Voluntary Uniform Organizations
The Senior Special Assistant to Bayelsa State Governor on Tourism, Mr Piriye Kiyaramo has hinted on plans to collaborate with locally based voluntary uniform organisations to drive domestic tourism in Bayelsa State.
Saying that such groups often enjoy the trust of the local community than public bodies which may find it difficult to have such cordial working relationships.
Mr. Kiyaramo who stated this when he visited the Bayelsa State Command Headquarters of the Man O’ War Nigeria in Yenagoa over the weekend, observed that the youth of today seemingly lack the physical competencies to explore talents and abilities through community-driven activities in the scout and Man O’ War Clubs as it used to be in the 1970s and 1980s.
He therefore called on community leaders to evolve well-coordinated and progressive citizenship and leadership training programmes that would provide experiences that would build the social, moral, emotional, physical and cognitive competencies of the youth at the grassroots level.
The Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Tourism pointed out that indices of physical fitness among the youth of today as compared with their counterparts in the 1970s in terms of community productive social engagements were on the low side, adding that progressive initiatives and adventure experiences to foster true appreciation for personal and communal development efforts were minimal among young people.
The governor’s aide however gave the assurance that the prosperity administration of Senator Douye Diri of Bayelsa state is poised to making a difference in terms of youth engagement through entrepreneurial trainings and community based tourism activities which entail inclusive participation in governance for economic growth at the community level.
The SSA lamented that the lack of social citizenship competencies among the youth was evident in the near absence of the virtues of compassion, self-discipline and desire to build sustainable relationships among peers/colleagues, resulting in conducts that produce coercive interactions, pointing out that the community based tourism activities were the right way to go.
While commending the Citizenship and Leadership Training Centre, under the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports for living up to its Motto: “Build the Man, Build the community”, Mr Kiyaramo who also is a product of the centre, reiterated the need for strategically focused positive developmental programmes to help young people make the transition from adolescent to adulthood happy, productive and successful.
Responding, the Bayelsa State Commander of the Man O’ War Nigeria, Commander Ikaebimo Lawrence Victor, thanked the SSA for the visit and pledged to collaborate with his office in the areas of providing intelligence, trainings and other local security services when the need arises.
The State Commander was accompanied by Deputy State Commander, Moses Akpama,
Dep. Commander Daniel Lucky Déinyefa (State Secretary) and Deputy Commander (Operations), Ebibokefie Samuel.
It will be recalled that the Citizenship and Leadership Training Centre, popularly known as Man O’ War, founded in March 1951 at Victoria, Cameroun, was later established in Nigeria through an Act of Parliament, promulgated in 1960 and published in the supplement of the official Gazette (extra ordinary) No. 45 Vol. 47 of August, 1960.
