Follow Us on Google
From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
A member of the House of Representatives, Shina Peller, has said Nigeria can achieve national peace and unity through youth empowerment, warning that if the youth are neglected, peace and unity will be elusive to the country.
He made the disclosure at a press conference to kickstart the Season II of Peller Unity Cup (PUC), at Okeho Town Hall, Okeho, Kajola Local Government Area of Oyo State yesterday. A total of 440 players, that have been grouped into 20 teams, selected from the 10 local government areas of Oke-Ogun zone of the state will fight for one golden cup. Peller also distributed football kits to all the 20 teams that have been selected for the tournament.
Two former Nigerian international footballers, Dosu Joseph, and Femi Opabunmi, attended the press conference. Joseph promised to use his connections to ensure that the best player of the tournament goes to play the round leather game in Europe, and the best goalkeeper, a trophy and Under-17 national team. Opabunmi also promised a special gift for the highest goal scorer of the tournament.
Peller, representing the Iseyin/Itesiwaju/Iwajowa/Kajola Federal Constituency in the National Assembly, stated that the winner of the tournament would be awarded N750,000, while the winners of the second, third and fourth positions, would also be awarded N500,000, N250,000, and N100,000 respectively.
According to him, “We must understand the importance of peace. While you are thinking about peace, you will agree with me that you must think about the youth, because the youth occupy at least over 70 per cent of our population. We are the workforce of this country. I believe that we should start from the youth.
“You cannot think about development of a nation or progress in a nation, without thinking peace. You cannot think about peace without thinking about unity. That is why I believe that engaging the youth is very important, starting from Oke-Ogun, an area that occupies the largest percentage of the land of Oyo State, and it is agrarian. I can say that we are the food basket of Oyo State. So, I believe that one should be able to build peace.
“Even, as the Ayedero of Yorubaland – someone that has been charged to promote peace and prosperity in the land, I know that peace is very paramount to us as a nation, at least, at this time. We cannot build peace without thinking of empowering the youth. What we are doing now is to engage the youth for them to first of all unify themselves to understand that they are the workforce and that the development of this nation lies on their shoulders.
“That is why we have developed Peller Unity Cup (PUC), which started in 2017. Unfortunately, we were not able to play the next one because it fell during the election year. I heard that some bad elements of the politics were planning to take an advantage of such to cause violence. So, we cancelled it then. The second time that we wanted to play the match, was during the time we had coronavirus. But I thank God that today, God has given us the opportunity for us to kickstart the Season II of PUC, which is giving opportunity to promote unity among the diverse community of Oke-Ogun.”
