A Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) — Paradigm Initiative (PI) — has urged government and the private sector to be proactive in educating youths on proper use of social media.

The Project Director of the group, Mrs Tope Ogundipe, made the call in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, adding that such education would deviate attention from unwholesome sites.

NAN reports that Ogundipe was reacting to the remand of three senior secondary school students between the ages of 14 and 16 in Juvenile home in Lagos for gang-raping a 15-year-old female student.

She said that “what has happened is that we have a generation of people without the right level of education, and without social media literacy coming online.

“These are young people who use the social media in the wrong way.

“The young men and women must be educated and assisted on how they interact online and PI is doing just that.

“PI is educating and training hundreds of young people on a variety of ICT tools and platforms, we are already doing our part in training the young.

“Paradigm Initiative is working to ensure that young people use the social media constructively.”

Ogundipe added that to drive home the importance of education, the NGO was taking campaign to towns on how to keep safe on the Internet.

She, however, said that it was a role that everyone must play to ensure sanity on the different platforms of the internet.

Paradigm Initiative, initially Paradigm Initiative of Nigeria, focuses on digital inclusion and digital privacy. (NAN)

– Jan. 22, 2019 @ 14:05 GMT |