Amosun inaugurates children parliament

The Ogun State governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun has inaugurated 40 children as the 4th set of the State children parliament, in order to promote the dignity and inalienable rights of children across the state.

Governor Amosun who was represented by the State Head of Service, Elder Sola Adeyemi at the inauguration with the theme: Protecting the Nigerian Child Against Child Labour, held at the Oba’s complex, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.

He said it was a clear demonstration of the present administration’s commitment at addressing issues affecting the well-being of children across the State, so as to fight against the child trafficking and other child abuses.

Governor Amosun, maintained that his administration was convinced about the important roles children play in the society and has placed high premium on the intellectual development of children through the provision of affordable and qualitative education as entrenched in the five cardinal programmes of his administration.

“Out robust policy on education is borne out of our desire to ensure that our children will not only be able to compete favourably with their contemporaries within and outside Nigeria, but that they will be afforded opportunities for self-expression of their latent skills and talents”, he added.

He described the inauguration as timely, saying that the children parliament was a platform to adequately prepare the children for leadership roles and would boost their self-confidence in public speaking.

Governor Amosun said child labour was not only a fundamental issue but must be critically addressed so that people would be more acquainted with child fundamental rights to forestall violation of such rights by people either consciously or ignorantly.

He described child labour mainly as the employment of children in any work environment which deprives them of their childhood privileges or rights and interferes with their right to education.

On her part, the State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Abiola Kufile-Okonjie, while welcoming the young parliamentarians, charged them to use their platform to campaign against child labour, tackle it head-on and come up with probable means of reducing the social menace in the society.