Part 6: The Academy for Mineral Technology and Youth Engineering
In Part 5, I addressed the critical imperatives of environmental justice, mapping out the precise mechanisms required to enforce independent ecological audits and secure comprehensive health insurance for our host communities. However, a holistic approach to resource democracy requires that we look beyond environmental mitigation. We must directly address the intellectual and economic marginalisation of our youth population within these very same extractive industries.
To truly claim the mineral wealth of our land, the incoming administration must wage a deliberate war against the systematic exclusion of our indigenes from high-level employment. For too long, our brilliant youths have been largely restricted to low-level, temporary casual labour roles within the massive cement manufacturing plants operating on our soil.
This is an unacceptable paradigm that robs our community of sustainable human capital. The top-tier technical, managerial, and engineering roles within these multi-billion-naira corporate empires are routinely filled by professionals brought in from outside the region, leaving our host population to inherit nothing but physical exhaustion and industrial dust.
The regulatory response under the incoming administration of Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, Yayi, CON, must decisively break this glass ceiling. The incoming Yayi government must move swiftly to establish a specialised Academy for Mineral Technology and Youth Engineering, strategically situated within the extractive/engineering corridor.
This institution must not exist as a mere decorative vocational centre. It must be structured as a high-standard, specialised tertiary campus operated in direct institutional collaboration with established centres of academic excellence, most notably the newly upgraded *Federal University of Technology, Ilaro (FUTI)* – a historic institutional advancement coincidentally facilitated by Senator Yayi himself.
Read Also:
The primary curriculum of this academy must be aggressively tailored to the immediate operational requirements of modern mining, heavy equipment engineering, chemical extraction, and environmental safety management. By providing world-class, certified training on our own soil, backed by the academic prestige of our own federal university, we will eliminate any corporate excuses regarding the technical capacity of our local youth.
Crucially, the establishment of this academy must be legally backed by a strict Local Content Executive Order. The incoming administration must compel all operating mining conglomerates to sign legally binding employment quotas as a non-negotiable condition for their continued regulatory clearance.
This executive framework will statutorily mandate these companies to absorb a fixed, high percentage of certified graduates from the new Mineral Technology Academy directly into their core technical, administrative, and managerial cadres. We must turn the limestone of Yewaland into a permanent factory for generational prosperity and high-value professional careers.
*Advancing Together through Civic Ownership*
Transforming our youth from casual labourers into core industrial asset managers requires an unshakeable baseline of community mobilisation and educational advocacy. This profound human capital shift cannot be left to the state government alone. It requires that our local parent-teacher associations, community elders, youth vanguards, and traditional councils actively drive an aggressive orientation campaign across all our wards. We must inspire our children to pursue advanced STEM disciplines, while building robust community oversight frameworks to monitor corporate hiring patterns and ensure that not a single employment slot meant for a qualified indigene is subverted.
Therefore, my call to action for every single son, daughter, and resident of Yewa Awori is absolute. We must ensure we have our Permanent Voter Card (PVC) ready, or initiate necessary transfers immediately, because the PVC is our ultimate instrument of regional development. We must prepare for an unprecedented turnout in 2027, voting decisively to return President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR for a second term to complete his master plan for national infrastructure, while simultaneously ushering in the new, historic Yewa Awori led administration of Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (Yayi), CON.
With a unified home front and direct alignment with the presidential machinery at the centre, the Yewa Awori division is stepping out of the shadows of neglect and into its rightful place as the vanguard of a prosperous, equitable Ogun State.
YAYI NI JOO…!
Samson Ade Onipede
Iwoye Ward 04
[email protected]
