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Posted By Admin On November 24th, 2025

A former Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps, Maj. Gen. Johnson Olawumi (retd), has called on Nigerian youths to hold political leaders accountable using verifiable facts rather than social media narratives.

Olawumi made this call on Sunday in Ekiti State during the 2025 International Students’ Day celebration, where he addressed students on their role in 21st-century governance.

He stated that students, as an organised subset of the youth population, have a responsibility to act as watchdogs in governance, shaping how decisions are made and how public resources are managed.

“In the 21st century, three forces shape governance: data, networks, and trust. Data guides who gets what, where, and when. Networks mobilise people and ideas at speed. Trust holds the system together. These are crucial ingredients, and young people increasingly command them,” he said.

The former NYSC boss, while describing Nigeria’s youth bulge — nearly half of the population — as a strategic advantage, outlined eight key roles students must play to support nation-building.

According to him, the roles include studying national issues by reading budgets, audit reports, policy drafts, and understanding how laws are made.

“If you can read a spreadsheet and a memo, you can hold leaders to account and use that power responsibly. Don’t drown in shallow social media stories; bring facts to the conversation,” he added.

The retired Major-General charged students to deploy technology for civic problem-solving through community mapping, crowdsourced reporting, campus budget dashboards, and open-data visualisations.

He also emphasized the need for purposeful unionism grounded in principles and policy.

Source: https://dailypost.ng/2025/11/24/hold-govt-accountable-ex-nysc-dg-tells-youths/