Sanwo-Olu encourages pupils to repay parents with excellence
The wife of the Lagos State Governor, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, has appealed to learners to repay their parents’ trust and investment in them with excellence and best character.
She said this at the Dufil Prima Foods Plc, pan-Nigerian Children’s Day celebration which featured over 100,000 children from various schools in different parts of the country.
Sanwo-Olu enumerated the benefits of protecting the interest and visions of today’s children as they would be the adults of tomorrow, adding that they would assume many positions in medicine, farming, politics, and engineering currently occupied by adults of today.
She said, “As your parents and guardians, we count on you to give us a glorious future. You have a responsibility to repay your parent’s trust and investment in you through an unwavering commitment to excellence and the best character. I congratulate all our children in Lagos State and Nigeria as we commemorate another Children’s Day celebration.”
On his part, Group Corporate Communications and Events Manager, Dufil Prima Foods Plc, Tope Ashiwaju, said “In line with the Indomie theme campaign, ‘Show some love’, we are celebrating this year’s Children’s Day with over a hundred thousand children nationwide which is why we started earlier before May 27 to get as many children to participate from different parts of the country. While the children are having fun they are also relating with the brand while engaged in education-packed activities.”
He added, “After the COVID-19 lockdown, this is our major children’s day event to celebrate the Nigerian child. We want children to know that education is key which is why we are engaging them through educative games. Our message to Nigerian children is to continue showing love which is the focal point of Indomie’s theme campaign. This is almost the third generation of Indomie children since starting in 1996 as some are now parents.
It’s also important to note the gap in the quality of education and care given to the children continue to widen as a result of poor quality of governance.
We have a very few number of the children of super-rich parents who can afford to educate them in the best schools in the world.
We also have the children of the struggling middle class who send their children to public and affordable private schools.
Then we have the children of the dirt poor whose parents cannot afford to feed, let alone educate them.
For all these three categories of Nigerian children, the future is bleak indeed. The inhuman crimes, violence and terrorism that are threatening to capsize the Nigerian ship of state are offshoots of neglect of our children born in the 1990s and the early new millennium.
Even those we manage to educate languish in the job market, while majority of them are unemployable due to poor quality education.