AKWA IBOM SPEAKER CHARGES YOUTH TO LIVE ABOVE SOCIAL VICES, CHALLENGES
Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Aniekan Bassey, has charged youth of the state to live above social vices for development to thrive in the society, stressing that “a conflicted and a chaos society cannot be inhabited by reasonable people.”
Rt. Hon. Bassey gave the charge on Wednesday during the maiden National Conference of the Akwa Ibom State College of Education’s School of Arts and Social Sciences, Afaha Nsit.
The lawmaker, who was the lead paper presenter at the Conference, said “our society is under siege by numerous challenges ranging from manmade to natural issues which have affected the world at large today. Though the new normal, COVID-19, seems to posit a new dimension of challenge to our society, affecting all aspects of human existence within our various habitations, living with the pandemic and taking care of other societal challenges is more of what any human of this dispensation has ever dreamt.”
The Speaker, in his paper titled “Emerging Societal Challenges and Nigeria’s Sustainability: Echoes of Socialization,” further said “curbing societal challenges goes down to the place of socialization through its various agents, thus making a call to properly train the young ones is a call to curb societal challenges.”
“In Akwa Ibom State today, some parents are allowing the negative impact of modernization to crawl into parenting, forgetting the cultural doctrine of train up a child in the way he should go and what he will become, thereby giving us a society with young people with strange behaviours,” he added.
While explaining the scientific nature of his paper to participants, which, according to him, “sought to examine the roles of socialization agents in curbing social crises in South-South region of Nigeria with special emphasis on the Ibibio people,” Rt. Hon. Bassey urged parents to live up to their responsibility.
In his goodwill message, the Provost of the College, Dr Daniel Udo, thanked the Speaker and appealed to participants to avail themselves of every opportunity and knowledge offered by the Conference.
He further expressed confidence that the Conference will be of great benefit to the College of Education and all the participants, adding that theme of the event was apt.
The event, which was chaired by the Director Degree Programmes, Dr Theresa Ekanem, also had Dr Etim Frank of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Uyo, as a keynote speaker.
Highpoint of the event was the unveiling and launching of Akwa Journal, a publication of School of Arts and Social Sciences.