The Lagos Commandant of Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN), Mr Olanrewaju Kuforiji, on Friday urged youths to shun cultism and electoral violence.
Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, the commandant said Nigerian youths should avoid being used for violence during elections but instead, help maintain peace and order.
“I will advise the youths in the state to use their senses, yes the youths have the power because they are young, they are vibrant.
”They have brighter vision ahead of them so they should not allow any politician influence them negatively,” he said.
He urged the youth to get their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and vote for their rightful candidates peacefully.
“Their young and vibrant character should be utilised in something meaningful and beneficial to everyone.
“The youths should not be involved in any kind of violence being the leaders of tomorrow. They should help maintain peace and order so as to enjoy the dividends of the good seed they are sowing today,” he said.
According to him, the command is taking the sensitisation on the dangers of cultism to schools starting from primary level to the tertiary institutions.
He said that this would open the minds of the youths to the dangers of cultism and also engage them with the activities of the PCN.
“We have plans on ground regarding creating awareness on the dangers of cultism.
”It will gladden us for you to know that our primary objective is to visit and secure the tertiary institutions starting from both private and public secondary schools.
“We have a club which we call peace club in schools, where we give these teenagers orientation on how to be law abiding citizens by the time they graduate from secondary school into the higher institution.
“They will run this throughout their tertiary education and we also have reorientation whereby some of them that graduated from secondary school can join the officer cadet.
“We also have voluntary service, whereby you can be part of the activities of PCN and there is a stipend that will be given to them. We are trying our best to make sure things work well and that there is peace and security in the country,” he said.
On the issue of insecurity, Kuforiji said it was a good thing that Lagos is a peculiar state but the PCN had the manpower to gather intelligence information and share with the necessary security agencies.
“We can help to gather information and give it to the police or the army to effect arrest and also to prosecute offenders because we have the manpower.
“We have disciplined officers, we have enough men on ground that can do this and our men, as the name is, are peaceful. We are not violent, we have been trained to always maintain and promote peace,” he said. (NAN)
