Under the afternoon sun in Obuama Community, Degema Local Government Area, 140 young men and women stood in freshly earned graduation regalia, having just completed training in the installation and maintenance of lithium-ion-based street lights.
Watching them was the Senator Representing Rivers West, Ipalibo Harry Banigo, who had a message that was less celebration than charge: it was no longer a time for youths to complain but a time to push for the advancement of society.
The training, organised by Banigo’s office and facilitated by Bilview Energy Limited, had brought the youths through weeks of hands-on instruction. Addressing them, the former deputy governor said she was confident the opportunity would translate into meaningful development for the wider community – but only if they seized it.
“I am proud you have participated in this training with commitment and courage,” she told them, thanking President Bola Tinubu for creating a platform that gave young people something rarer than a certificate: self-esteem. It was, she said, “the confidence to build their talent and to be useful to society”, he said.
Her message then sharpened into instruction. “You have been empowered,” she said. “Use the knowledge gained for your good and the good of your family and the society at large. We want to give you skills for a future Nigeria.”
“Prepare your character and be ready to work for the advancement of this country. No complaints again. Get involved in things that will advance the society,” she said.
Banigo also praised President Tinubu and Senate President Godswill Akpabio for backing the initiative, urging the graduates not to let the training end as a line on a certificate but to carry it into the community.
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For the facilitator, Billy Gillis Harry, Chief Executive Officer of Bilview Energy Limited, the significance of the day went beyond the ceremony itself. He said the training would position the participants to change the course of development in their own areas and commended the youths of Obuama for allowing the programme to run its full course peacefully.
He was careful to note that none of it would have been possible without the backing of President Tinubu, describing the project as an extension of the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda to empower youths. Of the 140 trained, he added, 110 had qualified for full empowerment with equipment and funding.
The technical backbone of the programme came from RISE C-Boss Global Limited, whose Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Cynthia Ejifoma, called the Lithium-Ion Battery Solar Streetlight Installation Training Programme an incredible journey.
The goal from the start, she explained, was to equip youths with renewable energy skills that could create employment, spark innovation, and feed into the development of their communities.
Rather than confine the training to classroom lectures, Ejifoma said the programme took a practical, step-by-step approach, breaking every topic into simple, digestible modules so participants could master one concept before advancing to the next.
That grounding, she said, now opens several career paths for the graduates: solar streetlight installation and maintenance, sales and distribution of solar products, lithium-ion battery maintenance and repair, technical support, community-based solar streetlight projects, and even establishing their own renewable energy enterprises capable of employing others.
