The chief executive officer of New Horizons Nigeria, Mr. Tim Akano, has bagged awards from three major umbrella bodies of Nigerian youth organisations, namely, the Council of Students Union Presidents (CSUP), Northern Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) and Odua Youths Parliament (OYP), for his relentless commitment and unparalleled passion for youth empowerment.
The groups, combined together, which have over four million-strong students membership in all the higher institutions across the 36 states and Abuja, 19 northern states and across nine Yoruba-speaking states, came to recognize and honour the CEO with various awards.
While NYCN confered the title of Barkuwan Matasan Arewa Najeriua “the Shield of Northern Nigerian youths,” the OYP and CSUP presented awards of excellence for his numerous youth empowerment projects across Nigeria, especially in the area of ICT.
The New Horizons CEO was recently named by the Federal Government as Nigeria’s Icon of Youth Empowerment through the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Skills Aquisitions and Empowerment Department (SAED).
In addition, Akano was named by two national newspapers during the recent celebration of University of Ife @ 60 as one of the best 60 alumnus of the university, while Osun State, during the 30th anniversary of the state, included Akano as one of the 30 Living Legends from Osun State.
Receiving the awards from the groups, the elated Akano said he appreciated the thought and the thinking that went into it and assured them that it would challenge him to do more. “Helping youths to shape their future is the reason I exist and outside of that there is not much meaning again for me in life,” he said.
Akano who made a vow 17 years ago to God, that if God would go with him and keep him safe and prosperous on the slippery entrepreneurship journey, he would use the concomitant blessings for common good, especially to raise several youths to achieve their respective destiny.
He said, “whatever I do, I do it not because of an award but to bring out light to another youth that would be far bigger than me tomorrow. That is what gives me joy. My second motivation is my desire to beaqueth a good name for my children so that in future my name will continue to be a precious key in their hands that opens doors.”
Akano, while urging Africans all over the world to use their talents and huge numbers to create the African wealth, using the instrumentality of 4.0 technology as poverty-killer.
“Through the One Africa Initiaves (OAI), we are working on transforming Africa by creating African wealth among Africans all over the world. Right now, we have Arab wealth, they have so much money from oil, and they use it to empower their youth. We have Jewish wealth and also Chinese money. The secret that we have not understood in Africa is that except we consciously build and empower the youth, Africa will continue to move like a barber’s chair in circular crises”
The purpose is not for me to become the richest man in Africa or in the world but to raise and mentor African youths to be among the Forbes 100 richest people in the world in the next 10 years.