The National Orientation Agency has urged parents to protect their integrity by ensuring that their children do not engage in actions capable of tarnishing their family’s image.
The agency warned that the practice of writing on the breasts and laps of female students during sign-out celebrations in tertiary institutions runs contrary to Nigeria’s core national values.
Addressing journalists in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, on Friday, to formally commence the agency’s two-week nationwide civic engagement drive in Osun, NOA’s Director, Human Resources, Ayisola Olowoyo, who spoke on behalf of the Director General, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, cautioned against extreme actions while celebrating milestone achievements.
“Let me say something briefly on the sign-out activities. The exercise itself is a good one, but there can be evil forces behind it. People are celebrating, they wish their friends congratulations, but they go to extremes.
“In some situations, they wear white; they write a lot of things on it. They write on the laps of their colleagues, they write on the breasts of their colleagues. This is against national values”, Olowoyo said.
To bring back discipline into the nation’s public life, the NOA boss said the agency would launch the National Values Charter, a document containing information about discipline, duty of care among the citizens of the country, honesty and integrity in private and national life.
“So when this charter is launched, you know we are expecting positive results. Then, at our own level as parents, we want to take some drastic steps because we like to protect our names. We don’t want our names to be spoiled. You have the right to teach your children how to behave, how to conduct themselves”, Olowoyo added.
Speaking on the significance of the two-week nation-wide civic engagement drive, Olowoyo said the campaign would cover five areas to include: national enlightenment on government policies, programmes and activities, flood mitigation, national security awareness, national values reorientation for students against extreme sign-out practices, as well as, Nigerian identity project/national symbol campaign.
To drive the message to all parts of the state, she said grassroots outreach would be held in markets, schools, motor parks, religious institutions and community halls, urging traditional rulers, religious leaders, community stakeholders, among others to join the campaign for the desired results to be achieved.
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