Awodiji, representing Irepodun Constituency in Kwara House, gave the commendation during the 2019 Igbomina Day and N500million fundraising for Igbomina house in Lagos on Sunday.
He said that the minister, who is also an indigene of Igbomina, was committed to the unity of Igbomina indigenes and Nigerians as a whole.
“I want to seize this opportunity to appreciate the minister for his commitment to uniting the Igbomina indigenes across the globe.
” He is always supporting our programmes,” he said.
Awodiji said that the proposed Igbomina house would help in the rehabilitation of youths from the area.
He said that the house would also be used for skills acquisition and other developmental programmes for the Igbomina youths.
“The proposed Igbomina house will help us rehabilitate our youths and for empowerment programmes, we are focusing on the youths because building the youths means building the nation.
” The youths are the most vulnerable in the society; if we are able to take them off the street, make them responsible citizens this will be a good one for the nation and for Igbomina indigenes.
” We are enterprising, hardworking and conscious of our integrity which accounts for the reason we are not usually involved in questionable activities,” he said.
Awodiji urged every community in the country to help rehabilitate the youths in order to make the society a peaceful one.
Mr Idris Quadry, Chairman Omo Ibile Igbomina, Lagos State chapter, said that Igbomina people in Lagos were in dare need of a befitting house in Lagos to drive some cultural programmes.
” We need a befitting place for meeting, to organise programmes for the promotion of our precious culture and to groom our youths in career talks and more.
“Most of our children cannot speak our indigenous languages, we want to encourage them to embrace their culture while we organise programmes that would help them.
“We want to try as much as possible to inspire the youths through beautiful programmes.
“The Igbomina house will be for the use of everyone even for generations unborn,” he said.
Quadry said that a good number of Igbomina indigenes had contributed to the economic growth of the nation and would want to encourage this as the youths would be groomed to live responsibly to contribute their own quota.
He said Igbomina indigenes were part of the Yoruba race found in Osun and Kwara states.