Akire of Ikire-Ile charges citizens on community development

Akire of Ikire-Ile charges citizens on community development

The Akire of Ikire-Ile, Oba Abdulazees Olatunbosun has charged the people, especially well meaning individuals to give back to the society by engaging in community development programmes.

The monarch spoke at a special programme organized by the Ido-Osun Youths Forum, where he was special Guest of honour and speaker.

 

The monarch who took time to explain the concept of citizens and community said "broadly speaking, citizenship is the status or state of being a citizen in its various senses. When referring to a nation, citizenship is defined on two premises, either by birth or nationalization. You're a citizen of a country by virtue of being born in that place or application for naturalization in accordance with laid down rules. 

"You become the citizen of a country once the rules and condition of naturalization are met and accepted. However, the word citizen as used in the context of this topic refers to natives of a community/town either living at home or in diaspora as well as local inhabitants, occupants and residents of a place irrespective of where they come from. 

"A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighbourhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms.

"The concept community has two connotations, the organic and ecological conceptions. The organic conception placed emphasis primarily on close personal contacts and identity of interest as the chief character sties of community while ecological conception is related to its territorial character that makes collectivity of members to share a common base of operation for daily activities. Therefore, we can classify every type of community by the purpose that brings or connects them together as highlighted below:

"Communities of people brought together by geographic boundaries. For instance; Iwo, Osogbo, Ido-Osun,Ikire-Ile,etc in Osun State. In these kinds of communities, the land, location and history are fundamental to identity. 

"Interest: Communities of people who share the same interest or passion, such as a religious communities like the Ansarudeen Society of Nigeria.

"Suffice to say that community is a collection of people who share a common territory and meet their basic physical and social needs through daily interaction. Looking at it from another perspective, a community can be rural where the houses are spread very far apart and predominantly for farming or urban areas usually located in the cities. We can also have the suburban areas, i.e the mix of urban and rural.

On development  he said "in the real sense is a human process.It is a human process because human beings, not material factors, drive development. It is the process of improving the quality of all human lives and capabilities by raising people's level of living, self-esteem and freedom. The process creates growth, progress, positive change and lead to addition of physical, environmental, economic, social and demographic components. Purposefully, development promotes rise in the level and quality of life of the populace, and the creation or expansion of local and regional income as well as employment opportunities."

"A greater ability to bring about the changes you want to see: The collective voice of many people working together on a problem is usually much more powerful than a single voice," he added.