by Seyi Lawal

  Nigeria Leadership Initiative Associate, Adeola Austin Oyinlade, 30, has been named by the African Union to popularize and digitize the African Youth Charter.  

While unveiling him and speaking to the young African Leaders at the AU Youth Experts’ meeting in Addis Ababa, Dr. Raymonde Agossou, Head of Division Human Resources and Youth Division of African Union, announced that Oyinlade, a United Nations’ Young Ambassador for peace and president of ‘Know Your Constitution Initiative in Nigeria’, has successfully used law, social media, radio and mobile applications successfully as tools of Social Engineering and problem- solving. 

Oyinlade, a law graduate of the University of Lagos, was invited by the African Union Commission in April 2011 as a guest speaker at the plenary session of the African Youth Forum where he addressed the forum on readiness to reform National Laws and Legislation in compliance with the African Youth Charter. His recommendations were part of the Forum resolutions presented to the Africa Union Head of States at the Malabo, Equatorial Guinea AU summit, in July 2011. 

The thrust of the agreement signed on 4 November, 2011 at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia between the African Union Commission, Youth Division and Know Your Constitution Initiative, is that Oyinlade will develop mobile and Facebook applications of the African Youth Charter in the six (6) African Union Official Languages: English, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Swahili and Spanish and generally popularize the African Youth Charter so that every phone user in Africa can have access to the Charter . 

“The African Youth Charter enshrines the rights and duties that are critical to the survival of African Youths. Being an international treaty, it has to be signed, ratified, and transformed into the local laws by the African

Union member states before implementation. Many countries have not yet ratified the charter, not to talk of domestication,” Adeola observed in Addis Ababa. 

 Speaking on the expected results of the project, Adeola said, “It will go a long way in making youths across Africa understand their Civil/Political rights and socio-economic rights alongside their duties towards national and international development. Moreover, it will go a long way in making all African Union member- states sign, ratify, transform into local laws and implement the charter in order to empower youths to get involved in the drive towards sustainable development in Africa.”