Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah has advised the youth to imbibe the virtue of hard work and shun seeking shortcuts to success.
He also admonished them to embrace technology and imbibe the virtues of courage and empathy to make a success out of their lives.
Mbah gave the advice when his wife, Mrs Nkechinyere Mbah, led 100 youths being trained by her foundation, Custos Care Foundation, on a visit to the Government House, Enugu.
According to the governor, there is no shortcut to success and there are things that one must imbibe to reach a successful destination.
He said, “Nobody, not even your circumstance of birth, can stop you. The only thing that can stop you from getting from your current situation to where you want to end up will be yourself.
“You have to be extremely determined to make some courageous moves, but it is extremely important to realise that courage may be misinterpreted.
“We tend to think that the act of being able to put up a fight in itself demonstrates courage. But that is not the case because sometimes courage may require us to take a flight, not to put up a fight.
“If you want to become a great person, it has to start with your education. If you have to end up with the best grades, you have to work extremely hard and that requires having the right work ethics.”
He charged the youths to equip themselves and be ready to embrace future skills in technology that would enable them to compete globally.
Mbah equally commended the foundation for awarding scholarships to Enugu youths who performed outstandingly in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
He assured the youths that his administration was already thinking ahead to equip them and the generations following with the necessary skills to excel in the contemporary world.
“That is why, if you go to the Smart Green Schools, we have already set up laboratories to equip Enugu children with skills in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mechatronics among others,” he said.
Earlier, the Executive Director of Custos Care Foundation, Egodi Igwe, said the August 2024 bootcamp programme, themed “Enugu Youth Aspire”, was designed to empower, educate and inspire youths of the state.
She disclosed that the youths, between the ages of 15 and 20 years, were drawn across the 17 Local Government Areas of the state.