Ramadan: Ogun Govt Enjoins Students To Refrain From Destructive Behaviour

ABEOKUTA - The Ogun State Government has charged Nigerian students to desist from destructive tendencies but rather fear God and remained committed to pursuing those ideals that would assured them of a better tomorrow.

The Special Assistant to the Governor on Students' Matters, Adeyemi Azeez gave the charge on Wednesday at the 3rd edition of the Annual Ramadan lecture and special prayers for the governor and leadership of the state held at the June 12 Cultural Center, Abeokuta. 

Adeyemi equally said that the state government is on top of the recent reported armed robbery attack against students community at Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro saying that the government would leave no stone unturned to ensure that everyone is safe in the state.

The governor's aide said that the essence of the annual Ramadan gathering with the theme "Maintaining Your Sanity In An Insane World" was to bring together the students and the youths in the state and use the opportunity of the holy month of Ramadan to feed them with the word of God.

He said "you will agree with me that we must all do all that is within our capacity to restore the lost glory of this country and one good way to do this is by returning to God and the youth being the most sensitive and populous in our demography must be carried along. 

"The youth must constantly be engaged from time to time, they must steer clear of those destructive tendencies like cultism, issues of drug, indecent dressing, ritual killings, rape and the like that could hinder them from achieving their purpose in life. Hence, this Ramadan lecture, the third of its kind since I was appointed as the SA to the Ogun State governor on Students' Matters. It provides a forum for all of us to hear from Almighty Allah and then adjust our ways for a better society".

On the issues of reported frequent armed robbery attack against the student community of Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Adeyemi disclosed that "we really condemned this horrible act and the state government is on top of the situation. We have equally urged the students to be more security conscious and do not waste time to raise alarm when they notice strange faces, these attacks are most likely to have been perpetrated by strangers. 

"We have had stakeholders meeting with the students and I want to say that sanity has been restored. I must equally use this opportunity to urge our teeming students to keep on cooperating and supporting the government of Gov Dapo Abiodun because this is a government that has remained committed to ensuring that things get really better for them''.

Giving his lecture at the event, the Chief Imam of An-Sar-U-deen Central Mosque, Owode Yewa, Sheikh Olasunkanmi Ewuoso has attributed growing increase in cultism, rape, money rituals and teenager misbehaviours, among other social vices to bad parenting. 

The cleric noted that the society would continue to have challenges that would keep threatening the peaceful coexistence of people, economic growth and national security if family institution remained in disarray. 

Sheikh Ewuoso maintained that restoring good parenting remained key to waging war against all manners of social  misdemeanors, advising government to enforce strict compliance of legislation to control those bad incidences.

He also opined that social media needed to be more regulated, saying that it would continue to do more harm than good without thorough regulations.

"A lot of youths are being misled and influenced by activities they came across on social media, hence, the need for proper regulations," he said.

"Most of the insecurity challenges are not peculiar to Nigeria alone. All the problems are handiwork of human being. They are the consequences of disposition of human being.

"The new generation believes education is a scam. A generation where immorality is being celebrated. Part of the things that destroyed the world is promiscuity, drug abuse, cyber crime, and cultism which has now become away of protection among the youths.

"There must be functional institutions, (economy, family, political, religious institutions) if there is a problem with any of these institutions, there will be problem.

"If we have missed it at the level of family institution, other institutions will be affected. The solution is to go back to the basis. By abiding in Islamic child upbringing formula."