2019: New group mobilize for youth participation in governance

A new group has emerged whose mission those behind it are saying, among others, is to mobilize the youth for effective participation in governance and other areas of endeabour as 2019 general election looms.

Going by the name “Talk to 100,” the idea is for the first 100 members who form its nucleus to each recruit 100 persons in a multi-level development chain that should cover the entire country with a sensitization programmme “aimed at multiplying opportunities.”

Speaking to journalists on Thursday in Abuja after its inaugural conference, its Director of Organization and Publications, Mr Kenneth Gyado, said the target of the initiative was the more energetic, “the most economically active and the most intellectually conscious segment of the Nigerian society to actually wake up from their docility and take up their responsibilities as stakeholders in the Nigeria project.”

He added: “The current practice is that the youths and women who form 90 percent stock of the Nigerian electorate are not actually carried along in the decision making processes in Nigeria. They are not participants in the scheme of things.

“So, that slogan saying a new and prosperous Nigeria is possible is to wake them up to their responsibilities because, barring any health incidence or any accidents, most of the people behind this movement have up to forty years more to live.

“That means they should be more concerned about where they will be in forty years time.

“The other people who are occupants there now may not be there in the next decade.

“So, by their behaviour, by their attitude, they may not care about how the country will fare beyond the 10 years.

“So, those who own the future should start by investing in it now.”

On how ready the youths are to take over from the old ones, he said: “I think given the right stimulations, messages and the right idea transmitted across, we think they are ready.

“Most of the docility you see now is as a result of ignorance or because of the structural defects in the Nigeria set up.

“They have been made to believe that they have inferior roles to play in national development.

“That has become an idea that has germinated and had become entrenched.

“So, we want to reverse that trend. The global trend now is that, young people have taken over and the case of Nigeria should not be different.”

On 2019, Gyado stated that youth were ready to occupy the forefront immediately, saying: “They should take over even now, why waiting till 2019. In fact the process of taking over has started by the passage of the not too young to run bill already.

“Suddenly they have realized that if it happen in France which is a well established democracy of over 200 years, it should also happen in Nigeria.”