The need to train young ones on the care of animals and inculcate the culture of enforcing animal rights in Nigeria was the focus of recent advocacy in commemoration of the World Animal Day which held recently.
The Animal Protection Organization of Nigeria (APON) as part of its celebration of this year’s World Animal Day made a call urging Nigerians to have a change of orientation towards maintaining the right of animals.
APON in a statement signed by its founder, Mr Joseph Odika, said there is a need for the public to change their orientation towards animals because they also have rights, adding that there is a need to train youths and students to be futuristic pet owners who understand the importance of maintaining the rights of animals.
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Odika stated that the organisation focused its commemorative event of celebrating the World Animal Day on Friday on educating young ones on how to become compassionate adults and futuristic pet owners because it is easier to catch them before they mould opinions about such issues since most adults also don’t understand the concept.
According to him, APON focuses on young ones because the adults that could teach them also need education on human rights which had not been part of the Nigerian culture, adding that the organisation under his leadership will continue to bring out initiatives to achieve sustainable development goals on human rights.
“Today being the World Animal Day, we, Animal protection Organization of Nigeria, with a regional office in Ibadan, celebrated the world animal day amidst friends, school children, civic organisations, public administrators to mention a few. Some of the schools in Ibadan that received us were All souls high school, Safari international academy, Eleyele high school and Little professors.
“Part of our activities centred on introduction of humane education to the schools to prepare the pupils and students towards becoming compassionate adults in the future as they themselves are futuristic pet owners.
“We also went out to public places to educate the people about animal rights. So many Nigerians are unaware of these rights and its consequences. One of our objectives is to change the orientation of our people towards animal. Not even a few recognises animals as sentient beings.
“Animal Protection Organization of Nigeria under the leadership of Joseph Odika is poised at achieving some of the sustainable development goals with this new initiative,” he stated.
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