A non-governmental  organisation, Gospel Socio Responsibility Foundation (GSR) has advised government at all levels to include young people in decision-making to facilitate developmental rate in the country, reports OLAYINKA LATONA.

The submission was made by the GSR programme co-ordinator, Chinenye Bakare during its maiden Youth Excellence Series seminar in commemoration of 2015 International Youth Day. Theme: “Youth Civic Engage-ment”.

Bakare argued that denying youths the opportunity to mean-ingful participation in decision-making runs contrary to their human rights and amounts to a failure of the democratic process.

She also urged government to create a conducive environment, provide necessary social amenities that will encourage Nigerian youth to fully participate in decision-making in the country and this, according to her, will help put the nation’s quest for development on the right track.

“Young people are not just the future, they are the present leaders of this great country. They have to educated and be inspired to be involved in politics,” she said.

Speaking on “Excellence in Life”, the NGO country manager, Violet Timothy, encouraged the participants to cultivate excellence by first discovering their purpose and vision,  main-taining that they can only achieve this through the Word of God.

She further encouraged youths to contribute to societal develop-ment in whatever little corner they find themselves.

Encouraging the youths to join political parties and contribute their quota towards the develop-ment of democracy in Nigeria, a political consultant, Pastor Harrison Oguegbu who spoke on “Youth and Politics”, said the youths constitute the largest part of the country’s population hence their participation in politics is a sine qua non to the attainment of  sustainable human development.

Also speaking was a professional farmer, Pastor Dele Kuye, who spoke on; “Youths and Agricult-ure.” He enumerated key opport-unities youths have in the agri-cultural sector, maintaining that it is the only sector that can absorb the teeming unemployed youths in the country.

The programme was supported  by Refuge bank, Fax Consult and Dwon Consulting International Company.