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Asaba, Delta State – September 25, 2025 — Calls for responsible, visionary and patriotic leadership resonated on Thursday as the Abuja Leadership Centre, in partnership with the TETFUND Centre of Excellence in Public Governance and Leadership, University of Abuja, hosted a one-day Youth Leaders’ Clinic at Dennis Osadebay University, Asaba.
Themed “Empowering the Next Generation Leaders”, the programme brought together senior prefects and student leaders from Delta, Edo and Bayelsa states to nurture civic responsibility, accountability and ethical leadership among young people.
Representing the Delta State Government, Commissioner for Secondary Education, Mrs. Rose Ezewu, hailed the initiative as “timely and laudable,” describing it as crucial to shaping the character and mindset of future leaders. She urged participants to embrace service as the foundation of leadership and to cascade lessons learned at the clinic to their schools and communities.
Ezewu reaffirmed the state government’s commitment to programmes that build leadership capacity and civic consciousness among students.
Director of the Abuja Leadership Centre, Professor Philip Dahida, highlighted the centre’s record as a hub for advanced leadership studies and policy research. He noted that its graduates are serving as political leaders, bureaucrats and senior military officers, and stressed the centre’s practical focus on addressing Nigeria’s leadership and governance challenges.
“The centre is producing leaders who are not just certificated but capable of providing solutions to policy depletion, leadership quagmires and governance bottlenecks,” Dahida said.
Retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, Marvel Akpoyibo, underscored leadership as Nigeria’s major development challenge, advocating for early training in leadership values. “We are catching them young to imbibe traits that will make them better citizens of our dear country,” he said. “With good leadership, development will be rapid, and Nigeria can compete globally.”
Coordinator of the Abuja Leadership Centre for Edo, Delta and Bayelsa, Mrs. Winifred Elikwu, explained that the programme was designed to link citizenship, participation and leadership. “Citizenship gives you the values, participation gives you the practice, while leadership is the result,” she stated, describing leadership as “citizenship in action.”
The clinic featured lectures, group deliberations and feedback sessions to help participants internalise the lessons. Schools were also tasked to present what their student leaders had learned at morning assemblies and submit recorded clips as part of the feedback to the centre.
Participants described the event as highly impactful, ending with a renewed call for young leaders to embrace service, integrity and civic responsibility as the building blocks of national development.