Ibadan the capital city of Oyo State and the largest city in West Africa is set to play host to the biggest gathering of youths in the southwest of Nigeria with the Progressive Youths Festival coming up on Saturday, February 5, 2022 at Liberty Stadium, Ibadan.
According to the organizers of the festival, the event is being initiated to galvanize and prepare the youths for active participations in politics and leadership and to sensitize them on the need to pay more than a passing interest in the governance of the nation.
Some of the activities lined up for the event include trade fairs, empowerment, mentorship and a musical concert that will feature some of the wave making artistes on the musical scene including King Saheed Osupa, Small Doctor, Portable and others. Vendors who wish to display their wares are going to be doing so at no charges and will have the opportunity of showcasing their wares to over 30,000 youths who are expected to be part of the event. Another highlight of the event is a raffle draw where up to N10 million will be won.
According to one of the organizers of the event, Lanre Oyegbola-Sodipo, part of the reason why the festival is being initiated is to have more youths take active part in politics and governance, according to him, ‘the youths of Nigeria makes up a very sizeable, unignorable number, both in the count of eligible voters as well as the active, productive size of the population. It is high time we started asking critical questions and taking our place in the scheme of things. The whole idea of this event is to start a process of negotiating a better deal for Nigerian youths’.