Spread the love
By Stephen Adeleye.
Mr Babatunde Irukera, the Director General, Consumer Protection Council (CPC), has advised Nigerian youths to elect people with good records and antecedents in the 2019 general elections.
Irukera made the call on Saturday in Lokoja, at the maiden edition of Kogi West Youth Dialogue Summit with the theme: “2019 Election: Setting Youth Agenda”.
Irukera, who made a presentation on the topic: “Youth Unemployment & Electoral Violence in Nigeria”, charged the youths not to adopt the approach of bread and money towards 2019 general elections, saying the cycle would come and go.
“We should understand that as youths the courses of our lives depend absolutely on us after God and not anyone else.The only way we can get it right is to elect the right people in power.
“Politics and political leadership is to select the very best individuals to entrust our fate and lives in their hands. So the only number one requirement for political office should be past records.
“We have come to a point where we should choose people who want to lead us based on our own agenda and not their own agenda. Youths should choose their leaders and not leaders choosing them.
“Reject money and violence; when it is no longer money politics, that is the only time you can run for elective offices as youths. As long as we allow some group of people to define the entirety of our life, we will continue to run in cycle of poverty.
“Do not dissipate your energy on someone’s project or ambition, but rather adopt strategy which is deployment. Dissipating takes away, deployment brings return; I counsel you to adopt strategy towards 2019 elections,” he advised.
Irukera also urged the youth to be creative and exercise their brain and energy to do something, saying each person’s creativity was a potential for true job that come with it.
He added that no leadership of any nation would ever be able to provide sufficient employments for all the people, appealing to the youths to translate what they have into action.
“The biggest problem in Nigeria today is the overhead budget. What constitutes that overhead budget is mostly wages yet everybody is looking for a job in the civil service.
“Employment is usually a matter of innovation, creativity, passion, determination and drive. Politics should not be a substitute for unemployment”, Irukera added.
Earlier in his presentation, titled: “Youth and Money Politics”, Rt. Hon. Matthew Kolawole, Speaker, Kogi House of Assembly, urged the youths to focus on programs that would empower them economically and enhance their lives.
According to him, It is only when they do this that they will have the leverage to demand for inclusiveness in politics. Money politics has greatly impacted negatively on our youths.
Kolawole, who was represented by Elder Olalekan Aiyenigba, said that money would for a while continue to play its unfair role in Nigeria politics until the youth discard laziness and penchant for the crumbs of easy money.
He added: the youth while considering money politics in setting an agenda must be convinced that this brutal factor against their collective future can be defeated with the right mental attitude and willingness to pave way for a better tomorrow”.
In his opening remark, the Father of the Day, Rt. Hon. Clearance Olafemi, former Acting Governor of Kogi State, expressed happiness on the type of youths in Kogi west who believed that dialogue was the best way to resolving issues.
Represented by Mr Ibrahim Tunde, Olafemi said the youths were the engine room for development of any nation, saying they must strive to become leader and stop using themselves as the instrument of election malpractice.
He called for synergy between the youths and the elders, saying that the youths must show sign that they were equal to the task and urged them to stop monetizing politics.
Olafemi, also a former Speaker of Kogi House of Assembly charged the youth to hold their elected leaders accountable.
He, however, advised the youths to come out and signify their interest in elected position especially at the local government and councilorship level.
In his keynote address, Hon Ibrahim Adoga, Special Adviser to Kogi Governor on Multilateral and Donor Agency/Focal Person on Social Investment Programmes, said that the un-informed adults were the one causing the major electoral violence in Nigeria.
He charged the youth to strive to be “self sufficient and reliant, imbibe the principle of self drive and self motivated”, stressing that the youth should go for knowledge to be well informed.
According to him, there is no any correlation between youth employment and political violence. The so called electoral violence are caused by selfish political leaders.
“It is your duty as youths to stand up and fight for yourself and your right. Invest in yourself, build yourself, educate yourself, read, and be well informed”, Ibrahim said.
Presenting his Paper with the topic: “Political Leadership: Hurdles Before Kogi West Youths”, Rt Hon Umar Imam, former Speaker, Kogi House of Assembly, noted that the youth of Kogi West were particularly very smart, educated and resourceful.
According to him, the hurdles can be surmounted seamlessly if they collaborate and prepare to take the centre stage. Political leadership can only be attained through the democratic process.
He urge the youth to register with viable political parties and play the game by the rules, saying it was highly utopian to expect that the older politicians could be easily supplanted through social media engagements or negotiation.
“Politics is a serious business. It entails adequate planning, understanding the ethos and building a strong political structure. You need to be courageous and focused.
“Be encouraged to transform your dreams and visions into reality. You have got all the qualifications to run for any office irrespective of young age.Those who dare, win.
“The youth must begin to set political agenda that would translate their dreams and visions into reality. There is no doubt that youth have displayed political fecundity within the Nigerian political trajectory.
“However, they need to play politics beyond past time and passivity,” Imam said.
Earlier, Mr Oladele Nihi, Chairman, National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), who is the Convener of the program, said that the youth dialogue summit was the first of its kind, saying “it is meant to educate and set agenda for our youth to be useful during elections and for development of themselves.
“We believe that the youths of Kogi can do better in self development than in thuggery, criminality and in election violence. We are sure our youths will benefit a lot from this dialogue today”.
Spread the love
