NOA Endorses 'Hands On Deck' Leadership Seminar

To understand leadership is to significantly realize that leadership is about reliance, relationships and direction between someone leading and the lead. As part of generating great ideas that will help young entrepreneurs take the lead in Small and Medium Enterprise (SME’s), the PURE-WALKS Production, a concept development firm based in Lagos State on Wednesday 2nd October, 2019 held the 2nd edition of “HANDS ON DECK” Leadership Seminar 2019 with the theme: “Empowering Entrepreneurs Through Leadership Skills” at the National Theatre, Iganmu Lagos.

Setting the tone for discussion in his welcome address, the initiator of the programme Dr. Joe Ogbechie noted that character default is the bane of the country especially with the youths and young ones who are the leaders of tomorrow. He observed that Leadership was deliberately handpicked to draw attention to the essence of good leadership from the grass-root. By motivating and inspiring the youths to achieve right attitude and character suitable for the task ahead as leaders of tomorrow.

In his paper “Character Development and Nation Building”, the Director, National Orientation Agency (NOA) Lagos Directorate, Mr. Waheed Ishola defined Character development as a process of character building that positively affects the development of a persons’ emotion, spirituality and their personality. Character defines us as individuals and collectively as a nation. He noted that to develop the right work ethics necessary for entrepreneurial skills sustainability, individuals must imbibe the right attitudinal pattern in strong character development. Nation builders are those who take strong desire for self character development and abide by patriotic demand of self commitment and vision to accomplish greatness for their country.

With reference to the seven (7) Core Values of Discipline, Integrity, Dignity of Labour, Social Justice, Tolerance, Self Reliance and Patriotism as enshrined in Chapter 2, Section 23 of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution (as amended). The Director emphasized that the greatness of any nation lies in the commitment of its citizens to such national core values which obviously serve as the moral compass by which such nations achieve enviable development. The task of nation building is a collective task which should not be left at the doorsteps of our political leaders alone. It requires a whole dose of strong measure of character development as individuals. He called on Lagosian especially the youths and young ones to endeavour to recreate the society by collective strong will and efforts towards building such individual characters needed for a stronger nation.

Other speakers at the event were: CEO S.I Magazine, Mrs. Khadijah Abdullahi-Iya (Concept of Service); Prof. Chris Ogbechie, Strategic Management Expert; Director, Leap World, Ms. Funke Suasan Medun; CEO Biz Fruntears, Mr. Gbenga Bamiji; Barrister Olagunju Timi, Lawyer/Policy Consultant and CEO Eko Cab, Mr. Segun Cole amongst others.

Highpoint of the event was the performing poets, Spoken word performance and musical performance (Guitarist) by Cill Soul, networking, question and answer. In attendance were over 200 National Youth Corps Members, artisans, professionals, academia, representatives of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the media.