Your idle lamentation will not change Nigeria, Osinbajo tells youths

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo Wednesday admonished youths in the country to become politically engaged, warning against sitting idly by on the sidelines and complaining about bad leaders.

Osinbajo, who was represented by Babafemi Ojudu, Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, expressed this view at the Emerging Political Leaders Summit in Abuja.

“Youth have a challenge in their hands for the future of our country; so, I advise you not to sit down and fold your hands and be lamenting over bad leadership or politicians.

“Get down to business, organise and do something to become elected political youth; after all, Enahoro became a leader in this country at the age of 23 and later moved a motion for the nation’s independence at the age of 27.

“The leaders there today will vacate the place tomorrow. So if you the youth don’t start preparing today by getting mentored and learning the ropes, there is no way you will perform very well if the mantle of leadership falls on you tomorrow. So there is need for you to go in there and participate,’’ he said.

The vice-president however advised the youth to temper their expectations, noting that ascendancy in politics required time and persistence.

Read also: 2019: Tinubu downplays Okorocha, other govs’ endorsement of Buhari, says their ‘opinion does not really matter’

He said that it was not realistic to suddenly become president upon entry into active politics, stating that there was need to start gradually from the ward level and move up to local government level and then to state “before the presidency’’.

Also speaking, Kingsley Moghalu, former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said that youths had the power to create a better future by being engaged in the grassroot politics.

Moghalu said that what the country needed was a democratic revolution at the polling units, saying “If they don’t exercise that power, if they keep selling their votes for N2, 000 so that they will eat today, their children will have no jobs in the future.

“It is high time Nigerians stopped seeking immediate gratification; they always love what they can get now and that is killing us as a nation.

“If this continues, then the citizens are just as irresponsible as the leadership they condemn”.

Moghalu said citizens had to act, noting that “we have talked enough, the politicians don’t listen, they keep carrying on in their old ways.

“We have had enough but if that is true, then we must act like we have had enough and take up the challenge to change the status quo.’’

The convener of the summit, Wale Ajani, said the event was organised preparatory to 2019.

Ajani said that the summit was important to find solutions to Nigeria’s persistent challenges.

“Leadership failure is largely at the heart of the current woes bedevilling Nigeria, with little being done to build a new crop of leaders.

“The nation seems fixated; the citizens have come to have very low expectations of their leaders. The summit provides a platform for qualitative conversations and discourse about Nigeria’’, Ajani said.

 

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