Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said the 30 Nigerians under the age of 35 picked from diverse backgrounds across the country to undergo a one-year practical training at the Lateef Jakande Leadership Academy (LJLA) were being groomed for future leadership in the country.
The first intake ended a rigorous selection of participants from the 3,313 applications received from across the country.
The governor who inaugurated the the first set at a ceremony held in Lagos at the weekend said the academy was established in fulfillment of his administration’s vision to institutionalise the process of talent development and leadership preparation in the state’s public sector and to immortalise the late Jakande, who died on February 11, 2021.
Sanwo-Olu said his belief in young people’s capability to turn around Nigeria’s development trajectory continued to grow stronger, given the commitment, dedication and diligence brought to public governance by a set of youths appointed on the state’s cabinet.
Given the right mentoring and support, Sanwo-Olu said young people possessed huge potential to secure the nation’s place among the comity of development-focused nations.
He said, “We are living in a time when leadership matters more than ever before, in the private and public sectors. We must ensure that we are actively and deliberately growing the pool of young Nigerians who are able to meet the challenges of leadership in such a complex, complicated and youthful nation as ours.
“The academy seeks to develop the next generation of leaders in the public sector, by exposing selected young people to work opportunities across the MDAs of the government. The fellows have been selected from Lagos and other parts of the country to spend the next one year together as a pioneering class of talented, smart, diligent, and promising young people, with the power and potential to contribute to the unfolding success story of Lagos.”
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