Yenagoa: The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has appealed to the youth in Bayelsa to shun drug abuse, cultism, other related crimes, and criminality prevalent in the Niger Delta region.
Mr Cheikh Toure, UNODC Country Representative, stated this on Tuesday, during the 2025 International Youth Day Celebration, with the theme: “Local Youth Action for the SDGs and Beyond.”
The Bayelsa Youths Peace Champions were equally inaugurated as advocates of peace for Bayelsa youths.
Toure said that since 2016, UNODC had championed the message of hope to the youth and the entire people of the Niger Delta region.
He urged young people to reject drug abuse, cultism, criminality, violence, and other related matters and instead embrace what was good and legal for a better tomorrow.
The country representative stated that UNODC had selected 25 individuals for training to develop platforms that offer solutions for inclusive leadership.
He commended the state’s Commissioner for Youth Development, Alfred Kemepadei, for his support toward ensuring that the programme was a success.
Mr Robert Igali, Director General, Centre for Youth Development, said today was a day set aside to move beyond euphoric symbolic support.
He said it was a day to take concrete steps to empower the youth, whom he described as “the most critical asset of society.”
Igali said that without the youth as partners, the development process of the nation would remain stagnant in all spheres.
“This is a day for amplifying the voice of young people and acknowledging the vital role they play as agents of change.
“This year’s theme, Local Action for the SDGs and Beyond, is more than a call to action.
“It is an acknowledgement of the central role young people play in advancing sustainable development from the grassroots upward,” he said.
Mr Olomiete Enekpemi, the Permanent Secretary, Bayelsa Ministry of Youth Development, said the day was set aside to empower young people in Nigeria to become better people in society.
He said that the current administration in the state had empowered the youth through various programmes, leadership trainings, as well as local and foreign scholarships.
Enekpemi said that UNODC, in partnership with the state government, had come up with new ways of empowering the youth.
He emphasised the importance of engaging youth by creating platforms for idea exchange and sharing a better future.
The Commissioner for Youth Development, Alfred Kemepadei, lauded the UNODC for the partnership to celebrate the International Youth Day in Bayelsa.
He said that the state government had trained more than 180 Bayelsa youth in various programmes of agriculture and was prepared to empower them to become self-reliant.
The commissioner said that their policy was a road map for Bayelsa youth, which aimed to see them compete favourably with others in terms of ‘self-comfortability.’
Kemepadei therefore urged the youth always to take their lives seriously and shun acts that would put them in a bad light, to enable them to become the ‘leaders of tomorrow.’
