Practical writing skills workshop for socio-economic adva

• Abject poverty and corruption in Nigeria which was driven by greed and lack of patriotism among the citizens in addition to unhealthy competition for power and resources, civil upheavals and poor sectorial linkage are few of many ills that have hampered the nation’s progress. Therefore to eradicate poverty among the citizens and reducing corruption nationwide the best solution and practice through moral information sharing, ethical and attitudinal change tagged social reorientation through the best acceptable instructional methods than just the threats of punishment which the order of the day and this can be achieve with the skills of writing.

• There are many known reasons why corruption has thrived in Nigeria. A part from colonial antecedents, corruption flourishes in modern Nigeria because; the general socio-economic and political environment is vulnerable. The decision-making processes remain very ambiguous and vague.

Corrupt practices prevail where people live in systems of injustices and involuntary poverty. In Nigeria leaders are not accountable to the populace, morals, and ethics are not considered as principal yardsticks for recruitment into position of responsibility, therefore the society becomes a fertile ground for corruption and poverty.

It is in Nigeria where many people have decided to trade their integrity for corrupt acts. Students want to cheat during exams with support from their parents. Some teachers collect bribe form students to pass them. A corrupt police officer will prefer to collect bribe from a taxi driver with an overloaded vehicle and risk the lives of innocent passengers.

Corrupt contractors will rather use substandard products and materials to construct roads or publics buildings that will collapse after a few months and pose a danger to the public. With information and knowledge for Nigeria youths will re-brand education, business, politics and propagate virtues of good ethics, accountability and transparency in the governance.

• This project was designed to training five hundred (500) bilingual youth writers (English and Hausa) in social marketing behavior change communication (BCC) strategies and tactics from north-west geo-political region of Nigeria.

The six states, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara were among the poorest states in the country. The need to eradicate the evil of corruption, the poverty of over 72% of the population, economic woes, and hindering foreign investment.

The trained youth writers will work hand-in-hand with news editors, newspapers and magazines, columnists, radio and television commentators, novelists and lyricists as well as individuals, groups and institution of higher learning who support the anti-corruption  revolution to address executives, policy makers, judiciaries, stakeholders, community, religious traditional and business leaders and youth and women organizations to develop a culture of integrity among youth Nigerians.

• An open mass media print electronics and the internet are powerful force against corruption. It must be tapped into action and turned into action at all levels in the fight against corruption in Nigeria. Information sharing is a significant role the media has in this campaign.

There can be no positive change without the right dose of information necessary to push the people to the consciousness  of what they need to do and how they should go about  doing it. What they should not do and the consequences and results of what they do. People are not only through threat of use of the police and punishment but best through smooth socialization processes that tame their minds and perception towards the desired goals of the nation.

It should be noted that youths are to be placed at the center stage of this anti-corruption fight. Youth should cooperate with anti-crime institutions in the lookout for fraud, for example, the growing problem of cyber-crime, advance free fraud and scams that have made Nigerians notorious around the globe. Indeed, if Nigerian government wants to make a true change in the fight against corruption, it must start from the root of the problem.

With social marketing strategies and tactics with the intension of convincing the target groups to replace their old practices with new ones, or give their current behavior a new direction for better satisfaction. Our social products are “corruption and poverty and the target adopters are into sub-sets such as women, men, workers, youths, children, urban, semi-urban, rural, nomads, teachers civil servants ETC, we are also aware that social marketing  is a method of distributing or communicating certain messages to viewers, listeners, or readers as target adopters with the language they will easily comprehend. As Africans we are going to use many words of wisdom found in proverbs, jokes folk tales and songs as well as recollect quotes from famous people or from the scriptures that support the ideas we are presenting to people. By this our target audience wouldsee the idea as authoritative.