The International President of PG, Mrs Joy Ogbonnaya, made the call during the 11th edition of the group’s Mega Secondary Schools’ Student Convention, held at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu, on Sunday.
The convention with the theme “Nigerian Students as Agents of Transformation,” had in attendance over 100 secondary schools drawn from the public, private, and mission sectors.
PG is a non-governmental youth-focused and faith-based organisation to equip and empower the next generation to fulfil their destiny and become a people of integrity with high ethical standards.
Ogbonnaya advised the students to be focused in life and avoid all the distractions such as pornography, masturbation, homosexuality, cultism, prostitution, rape, consumption of hard drugs, and exam malpractice.
She said, “Nobody gives you an award for doing evil but you can be given award for being best mathematics student; cultism and prostitution have led many students to the early grave.
“So avoid being the perpetrator of evil and social vices.”
She explained that the convention was tailored towards transforming and empowering Nigerian students to become the needed agents of change in the country.
According to her, no nation can experience true national transformation and positive change until the students are fully equipped and empowered for the process.
She noted that the objective of the PR Club in secondary schools was to enhance the reading culture of students and restore their moral habits, which, to some extent, would bring about positive transformation in the nation.
“It is an established fact that transformed students will surely bring about a transformed society; hence, the need to encourage and support this project,” she said.
She added that the organisation in partnership with the Post Primary Schools Management Board (PPSMB), Enugu State, through PG Reading Club, had engaged over 100 public, private, and mission secondary schools within Enugu to inculcate moral values and restore reading culture among students.
She also explained that the reading club had impacted increased academic and moral knowledge, talent discovery, development, and deployment, increased knowledge of the adverse effects of social vices, a reduction of cultism in schools, and others among students.
The international president stated that through her efforts and help from friends and relations, she was able to organise a convention for students since its inception in 2012.
“This year alone, I spent above N15 million, which included food for the students, about 100 buses that conveyed them, and other logistics,” Ogbonnaya said.
She, however, appealed for land for the convention centre, project vehicles, sponsorship for their annual mega students’ convention, and other programmes, as well as the inclusion of their developed moral scheme in the schools’ curriculum.
Speaking at the event, the First Lady, Enugu South Council Area, Mrs Adaeze Nkwuo, represented by Evangelist Patricia Okoko, said she was marvelled by the number of students that attended the convention.
Nkwuo added that the programme would shape the lifestyle of the students, whom she described as “the future leaders of the country”.
A student from Coal Camp Secondary School in Ogbete, Enugu, Miracle Ogenyi, also described the convention as a source of empowerment and encouragement to students.
“She said, “I like the programme because it teaches teenagers like us to understand the wrong way of life and enables us to meet our fellow students from other schools.
(NAN)
