 All right, thanks for staying with us on productive youth engagement is the meaningful participation of young people in activities that contribute to their own development and the development of their communities. It can include a wide range of activities such as education, career advancement, unemployment and health, which is, you know, wellness, drugs. Governance plays a pivotal role in productive youth engagement. And a good governance structure is one that creates an enabling environment where young people can thrive and reach their full potential and ensure that they have a voice in the decision-making processes that affect their lives. It's known news that good governance has been a major challenge facing Nigeria and other developing countries as they strive to overcome developmental challenges. So today we're asking what is the role of governance in productive youth engagement and we're focusing on Canada State. Now please let's hear what you have to say. Remember you can join the conversation, send us an SMS or WhatsApp to the world, 803-4663. Jella, I want to quickly hear your thoughts on productive youth engagement. When you hear the word youth engagement, what comes to your mind? Well the active participation of youth within the spheres of governance and the sustainability of it, not just for the now, but having the right process, the right systems in place that ensures the continuity of that over time because I think with youth engagement and youth participation you're guaranteed continuous fresh perspective in the areas of governance which can be actually good for nation building. Awesome. So for me when I think productivity, I think empowerment, I think enlightenment, I think all of those things because again if we do not have that level of growth you know amongst the young people where they are very very empowered and enlightened then we're having a big major crisis at our hands. All right so let me bring in our guests. Sonu Siva Turei, Dawakim Tofa, you hear my house so well today. He's the Chief Press Secretary of Governor of the Governor of Canada State. He is a PRN Development Communication Specialist with experience in media, international development and private sector. He is the Vice President of National Operations at Kingston Organic PLC, UK and the Director of Stakeholders Engagement at Nigeria Yield-Wise Programme. Sonu Siva went to Bayero University, Kano and Kano State, Nigeria and has an MSc in social work with specialisation in community development at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Laotec of Wilmashaw. Hi, can you imagine? In order not going everywhere. Thank you so much Sonu Siva for joining us this evening. Thank you for having me. Finally in my studio. We've been chatting back and forth. I'm coming, I'm not coming, I'm not coming but at least now you have a bit of time to see us. So for us, right, we know all the drama that is happening around Kano State right now. But something very strong struck me when the governor just assumed office. I remember when he was talking about I think Caribbean phone theft amongst young people and I know that he had a lot of promises around, you know, youth engagement. And for me, if I ever want to have a conversation around governance, I really don't want to sorry you. I don't want to deal with your political issues. But I want you to help us paint a picture of where the young people are right now in Kano State. Bear in mind that youth population right across Nigeria, they are high 70% of our population. It's not a it's not a it's not a population to joke with. And again, even with the recent happenings around young people, right in the music industry and all the things that have happened in recent times, there is no better time, you know, to shine the spotlight on the things that we can do as a government, you understand, to engage our young minds. So tell us first of all, what is the youth terrain like in Kano State and, you know, how far in terms of engagement has your governor done with young people? Yeah, well, let me start by, you know, writing some of the challenges that were set to tackle. Oh, we have started tackling in the first hundred days of the administration of engineer Abu Qubir Yusuf. You know, when you talk about engagement, involvement, participation and what have you. Our type of politics or our ideology in politics is actually tilted towards ensuring that youth, both men and women are involved at any stage. So therefore, before the elections, we were able to engage a lot of youth to have those ideas, beautiful ideas from them in whatever the politicians were going to do. And then the blueprint we are going to also develop for the benefit of the state. So right from the onset, we are determined to do a lot of things that has direct behind them with the youth involvement. So mentioning the issue of challenges, Kano in particular have been bedeviled with the issue of phone snatching. Over a hundred people have been killed in the last few years in an attempt to snatch their phones, including very important human beings, very serious professionals, medical doctors, pharmacists, engineers, were killed in the street of Kano because some hoodlums wanted to snatch their phones. So this is one of the major challenge that his excellency is set to really tackle before the election and is written in his blueprint that he is going to declare a state of emergency on phone snatching. So the second major issue affecting Kano in the last 10 years will be leading in the issue of drug abuse. So drug abuse has some multiplier effects to other crimes. Amrobri, Kidnapping, rape and some other things, a lot of things. A lot of advice actually. Exactly. So therefore when he was elected as a governor, immediately after the swearing in, what his excellency did from the swearing in ground, he straight went to the Kano Reformatory Institute that was established by the former governor of Kano State, Musa Konkoso. It is among the 26th Institute of Secular Accusation for Youth established by Konkoso and all of them were closed down by Ganduja administration for eight years. So he visited the school in Gilu and he ordered the immediate reopening of that school so that drug addicts can be enrolled there and not just enrollment. After the psychosocial therapist that they will undergo and the medication, they call it de-intoxication. So there will be some injections they will take, some drugs they will take to deactivate the effect of the drugs in their blood. So after that they will be trained on different skills and some of them will be sent back to school, those that have required our qualification. Some will be trained on different skills and they will be given startup capitals, tailoring, carving tree and some other jobs. So the school is now reopened and we have started searching for the beneficiaries and then he also constituted a tax force on drug abuse because in his blueprint there's an issue of establishing an agency, an anti-drug abuse agency that will work in company of the NDLEA police, military and all other security agencies to curb the maintenance of drug abuse in the state. But before that because establishing an agency is a long process, you have to do a law and you have to do a lot of things. So his excellency decided to have that tax force of retired commissioner of police, retired NDLEA personnel and then the serving NDLEA command in Kano and the Kano police command, all are members of that tax force. So they have been going around trying to arrest some of those that are hiding in different places to do that. And then another thing which is the root of all this is these are the suppliers of the drugs into the states. So all their hideouts, the markets and the places that are hiding to sell the drugs to those addicts have been tackled. So we stopped them from the source and then we're trying to roll them into the reformatory area. And then he also appointed senior special assistant reformatory institute because in Kano we have private reformatory institute afar from those that are owned by the government. So therefore we need to regulate them what are their solubles, what they do, how they do their things, what are the type of things they do in the some four regulation purposes. So therefore we'll have the government and the private one because some people will prefer to go to private reformatory institute. Yes, but the government should have a hand in regulating those institutions as well. So we have done that and to tell you within the first hundred days of His Excellency there was no single report of Fonsonachal. There was no single report from the police or DSS for Fonsonachal in Kano. And he was able to bring back the street light across the metropolitan area because some of them are hiding under that dark areas, the blind spots so that they can just rob people of their phones. So therefore the street light have been restored in all the places so there will be no hiding place. And then the security are always on monitoring and surveillance so that nobody will have the opportunity to rob anybody within Kano streets. So this on the aspect of the negative and he also been proactive because we have engaged hundreds of thousands of views during our campaign and we ensure that we don't deal with the drug addicts, we don't deal with the political talks because we don't promote political talk. So most of the use we engage are well educated. Some of them they finish secondary school, some of them have diploma, some LCE, some are in the university, some have graduated from the university. So he categorized them into different levels. Those that have no secondary school certificate just last week he established Kano Street Sweepers. 3,000 of them were engaged to be sweeping the street and they will be given monthly allowance. 3,000 of them. And they say your streets in Kano need sweeping because last time I visited Kano with my father-in-law almost the streets were dirty. So that initiative has taken place, it was launched I think between one week to 10 days ago. Yes, that's for the non-education. For the ones that do not have exactly the same country school certificates. Exactly. And then for those that have secondary school and for those that are in school already in colleges of education and politics, the issue of removal of false subsidy created a lot of chaos. Some people I had in the news here in Lagos that some people even dropping from the university from the tertiary institution because they cannot be able to pay the tuition fee. So in Kano we have over 10 tertiary institutions including two state-owned universities Kano University of Science and Technology and the Northwest University Kano. Those two universities and other tertiary institutions in streets of increasing the the tuition fee. His excellency said the current tuition fee before the false subsidy removal should be reduced to 50%. So you see somebody going or studying NCE diploma at the rate of less than 10,000 naira as a registration fee per session and those that are in the university are paying just above 10,000 naira per session. So therefore the thing is just easier because we don't want to because any time the issue of out-of-school children or issue of education is reported across the globe they will say Nigeria, Nigeria Northern Nigeria and Kano contributes a lot. Why? Because of the population of the state. So if you do a prorata approach Kano is always higher because we have a large population over 20 million people at the moment. So therefore we don't want anybody we need people to be educated. So the government is so much diving in education to make sure that children stay in school. Exactly for access purposes you understand. And that's not enough. The previous administration had a back lot of the SSE fees with the NECO and the current year this year this 2023 the students were not paid. So on assumption within the first month his excellency paid 1.6 billion naira to settle the NECO examination for 57,000 students. Wow. That would be right in SSE because if they didn't write the SSE they didn't cross between the secondary and tertiary and some of them will just be at the communities trying to create mayhem become political talks with the drug addicts and what have you. So 557,000 students were saved under that initiative as well. Then on the other side if you go to university education we have one federal university which is called Bayero University Kano. The government don't control that university it's a federal university and they have no option because of the removal of forced subsidy they will have to increase the registration fee. It was around 40, 50, 60 and they doubled it to 80 not even 80 over 100. Yes some would pay 120 some 50 some special courses like medicine I've been paying around 180,000. So a lot of Kano Indigenous students decided to abandon their studies because they cannot pay and their parents cannot pay. So because of that outcry his excellency decided to pay for all the 7,000 Indigenous students 7,000 of them in Bayero University pay all their registration fee for this year for the 2023-2024 academic session that's amount to 700 million Naira. He settled all this. Again in 2011 during the Concosso administration he introduced the foreign and domestic scholarship for undergraduate and first graduate where over 7,000 Kano youth were trained in different countries and in some private universities within the country. At the moment we have over 3,000 PhDs that benefited from that scheme in 2011 some of them over a hundred of them are now associate professors working in different universities. So part of the blueprint of his excellency he said he's going to reintroduce that program because Ganuja abandoned it. So on assumption in office we just published an advertisement that anybody with a first class an Indigenous of Kano should apply to tell you I'm happy to tell you that right now most of them are in Abuja some of them have gotten their visa. 1,001 first class holders Kano Indigenous are flying to 14 different countries to study master's degrees yes around the globe. Wow. All of them are youth. That is a good place to take a break. This is really good report. Stay with us we'll be right back. All right so if you just turn the end we're having an amazing chat with Sonuzi on the Kano state right and their their plans for youth engagement right now remember you can join the conversation send us an sms or whatsapp to do in 180384663 you can also tweet at us at weissho after one weissho i mean dearla i'm sure you have so many questions because the way Sonuzi is just talking like my body does this with me because you know anything that has to do with young people you know i'm already sold out i i really love a lot of things you've said i like the idea because i know about that education program that Kokonso did and i know that you know for the period of Gamjuj's leadership eight years in government there was no continuity and you know and for me every time like you rightly said whenever there's a mention of northern Nigeria the next thing is you know people don't go to school there i was born bred butat in Kaduna state and now we go school pass people that live in the north they go to school but there's something that you know i've been pressing to ask because i know that many many many years ago when my mother needed to go to Dubai she used to go to Kano state you know then take the flight and all of those things right Kano is a commercial hub for the north like it's the biggest market so the way you have vibrancy in Lagos is the way you should have vibrancy in Kano what happens when we what happens and this is why we're having this conversation what happens where we neglect the the very boisterous and useful population is that you find issues around these drugs you find issues around crime and all of that so beyond education right there's the part of education which are fantastic right what would real empowerment mean for a Kano state young person today what will real empowerment mean to them because you see what empowerment means to me living in Lagos is completely different for what it will mean to someone living in Kano state you know so are these measures taken by the government or by the governor is excellency the issues around sorting out the bills on education sorting out the bills on learning the ascending people abroad and all of that are these real would it make sense to a Kano person that yes the governor is doing something for me well um yes you know before you do empowerment you have to profile the beneficiaries because you have to understand the social status of the beneficiaries so that you'll be able to determine what they need and what you can support them with yeah part of this uh in collaboration with some uh charity organizations uh the Kano governor is distributing uh uh some some palliative in terms of uh to the poorest of the poor rural uh yes dwellers of ten thousand of ten thousand because at some point uh there are people who just need money to survive so yes i tell you if you go to a hard to reach area you can find somebody that has never seen ten thousand of his own his entire life so giving him that ten thousand under that uh make a lot of sense to him exactly and a lot of people uh in the rural areas even in the cities there are some people who can use five thousand to treat something you understand so therefore another thing he did was to give an automatic tax relief for any local trade so if your capital is is below hundred thousand there are you're selling and buying something along the street you are examine you are exempted from paying tax so that you can be able to grow that business because if you're disturbed with a paying payment of uh tax then there will be issue so that's another uh some tax holidays for people that truly need it exactly exactly and then away from that uh there's another type of woman and youth empowerment and it's mostly trying to give uh to to focus attention on women uh which is the monthly empowerment so we're now getting ready to start giving fifty thousand naira after a short training of three days maximum of one way to women so that they can start business at home backyard farming uh maybe some production of uh uh detergents or whatever it is that that money can do for them to raise yes yes exactly so as soon as we start that will be on a monthly basis across the 44 local government of the city so that will also reduce poverty what we are targeting to do is to do poverty and hunger yes you know people a lot of people cannot eat and um so that's another thing and again you know ganduji at the eve of his um administration employed uh over 10 000 workers in the last eight years he decided not to employ anybody and there have been job racketeering within the system people are buying job offers at the rate of 500 000 naira in different agencies there was never a time when they made an advert people should apply for a job in the state and about 30 percent of the civil servant retired in different sectors and they didn't do replacement and he is not paying pensions so therefore another way uh his excellency stopped that uh uh employment immediately because we know it didn't it didn't follow the due process so therefore we are now screening them to ensure who are those genuinely need job who are those genuinely meet the criteria for job at what sector because some people might borrow certificate of somebody to just apply for a job like that because there was no due process in the process of employment so after that after the screening whatever number we found to be to to reflect the true picture of employment they will be given their salaries to continue from where they are but another aspect of the society that we always neglect is their retirees the pensioners pensioners have suffered a lot in camp because from 2015 till the last day in his administration gondoganduji did not pay gratuity of those that retired from the civil service in the state this is why young people are also going into fraudulent crime because they say if i can work like they are suffering just you know and you know that that has a little effect because those young people exactly so it's it then also somehow feels crime but let that deal are coming quickly okay so my question quickly is that um i mean the governor is doing quite this is administration is doing quite a whole lot considering holly's plans um but i want to ask is there any platform or any process in place for inclusive um governance where young people are giving the opportunity you know to voice their opinions and be a part of the decision making in kind of things yes first of all let let me confirm to you that i have forgotten in the state house of assembly we have a speaker who is less than 40 years old and we have other members uh at the early 30s to just give that representation of the youth because state assembly is very uh it is a serious arm of government that requires a strong representation of the people exactly that's one and then in the cabinet also have commissioners that are very very young and they are both male and female uh it's a true representation and then other aides like the sse is the sse is and some special advisors you see people in their late 20s early 30s were given opportunity to serve the government so he is truly a man for the youth exactly so quickly and then probably in the history of come on i might be the youngest sports person to the i can see that i was going to say i'm just gonna ask i didn't finish yes so so if you're talking about the platform in kano since the during the administration of rabbi kunkusu we have what is called community orientation committees okay it's at the state level at the local government level and at the world level and it has representation of women representation of of of religious leaders traditional leaders and representation of youth those committees are in charge of anything to do with the health education uh empowerment at the community level so select beneficiary of selection of beneficiaries on any empowerment will be done through that the fair of schools that belong to the community the fair of hospital provision of equipment staff and what have you they are the source of government in terms of what the community so the government to the people exactly i just wanted to say that two things quickly the people that go out to study that they are going this one thousand one hundred what is the plan to reintegrate them back into the system to come and impact kano state what is the plan for that yeah you know uh in the context we are today if you say you're sending somebody abroad with the hope that he uh he or she will come back to serve in the state you don't have the space you may not have the space so what we viewed on this initiative is that if you go to abroad you will have the required international exposure you can either stay there at work you have your parent here and you can contribute to even foreign direct investment because you are earning in dollars or in euro or in sterling pound abroad and you're supporting your people at home and you might have interest to do a business in nigeria so therefore wherever you are you are an ambassador of kano so we want to take kano to the world if you go to china engla america you see young men and women from kano doing a lot of things in business in universities teaching and what have you so out of those three thousand phd that i tell you a significant number of them are in different countries i know about hand about 50 in saudi arabia about 20 in afghanistan about another 50 in toiki so they are all there representing kano and nigeria as academics and they're doing pretty well every year they come to nigeria visit their family and what have you so you need to find a way of reducing the burden on the government because you don't have the space before before if you train somebody he needs to even sign a contract a bond that you will come back in the state so now you don't need that because because you are producing like 100 000 graduates every year and you have a space of less than 1000 per year so how are you going to do so you need to train them on how to do into how to go into private sector how to go into academic environment in nigeria and in other now the advantage is that yes so there's no any bond strategic plan all we need is that you are capable of that particular course you're studying and you are an indigent and you are able to even go beyond indigents of kano including resident if you stay in kano then i'm relocating what are you doing but thank you so much i think this is actually uh it's been a refreshing conversation i'm looking forward to having an exclusive because again it's it's beyond the um i want us to be able to like take it and now show truly these are the things it would be nice to have a conversation even to the young people too that have benefited from this and how it has impacted their life we're hoping that the governor will uh will be able to survive this i would i had one quick question okay this situation now because i know kano youths they upload the oats how because i saw that the governor immediately declared um what's it called a coffee so how would he manage the emotions of young people in kano with the situation around the tribunal really quickly yes you know as a chief security of the state he needs to be proactive that is why immediately after the judgment because the opposition members are aware of the outcome of the judgment because they know in any way or the other how to manipulate the process so they've pre emptied the judgment so therefore they lined up people to celebrate to come out to celebrate so that they can show they are popular but they are not popular in any way because we won the election with a landslide victory of over 126 uh margin between nnpp and apc so therefore he declared the state of emergency so that he will not allow them to create meh because there may be retaliation because nnpp is in charge of kano so therefore if the minority group can come out and jubilate then the majority can aggravate some exactly because of the nature of the situation yes so he manages the emotion and then the following day there was no any emotion on him that the following day he had the weekly as an anti-consolidation he controlled the government for you yes but thank you so much and you see i think we had a fantastic conversation we will take this conversation further now remember if you enjoyed the conversation thank you dearla follow us across all our social media handles that way so afghan interacted us further drop a comment and more importantly follow all our engagements on social media likes and invited families and friends to watch and follow conversation we missed our quote heritage again the power of the youth is the common wealth of the entire world the faces of young people are the faces of our past our present our future no segment in the society can match with the power idealism enthusiasm and courage of the young people this is a very powerful to um quote make sure you invest in your young generation we'll see you guys tomorrow at 8 p.m as we bring another great conversation to your screen