Ooni of Ife Declares the 2021 Royal Young Leadership Forum Open

On Friday, Ooni Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II, the Arole Oduduwa and Ooni of Ife declared open, the Royal Young Leadership Forum (RAYLF) 2021, a youth development and capacity building initiative.

Opening the 14-day event – for its second year – before journalists during a press conference at the Ile Oodua Palace of Ife, Ooni Ogunwusi explained that the latest edition is premised on the progress achieved in 2020.

Among other things, the edition is more committed to upholding its fundamental objective of breaking protocols and barriers impeding youth development especially the growth of young starters in the public and private sectors of the country.

The Ooni said:

Most of our plans last year were truncated by the covid-19 pandemic which shut down the entire world after our trip to Ghana where I took some youth leaders for a meet-and-greet with critical stakeholders early last year.

The meet-and-greet strategy was created to achieve the targeted goals of RAYLF, especially in the creation and sustenance of dependable connection for our youth leaders. It helps us to bring them closer to power and it has been yielding results.

“Like the Asian Tigers that led the Socio-Economic and political revolution in the Asian world, our focus is to create young leaders and call ours the African Leopards because leopard is the bravest of all animals in the jungle.

Ooni Ogunwusi who is also the co-chairman of the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria (NCTRN) stressed that his initiative is currently working on engaging concerned institutions in the country.

This initiative aims to eliminate discriminations like age, faith and tribe among others and to equally stop demanding tax from pioneer starters who are mostly young persons.

“Recently, I visited the newly constructed Dangote refinery with some young leaders where their eyes were opened to how things are done on a larger scale. That is the tip of the iceberg, we have identified countries like Uganda and others achieving an economic breakthrough on how our youths can learn how to bring prosperity to our dear nation,” he added.