2019: Nigerian youths more than prepared for leadership ―Young Alliance

AHEAD of 2019 General Election, a youth movement under the aegis of Young Alliance (YA) has said that Nigerian youths are more than ever prepared for leadership positions in the country, declaring the group, comprising of young professionals, was already mobilising youths across the country to canvass for leadership positions, instead of allowing old people to continue to be in charge.

Convener of the movement, Hon. Dayo Alebiosu-Bush, disclosed this in Lagos at an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, even as he disagreed with the notion that Nigerian youths were not ready for leadership.

This was just as he said the movement is well-armed with its strategies that would be unveiled at the appointed time to mobilise young people to dominate the political space in the country, beginning from Lagos.

According to Alebiosu-Bush, who is a former member of House of Representatives, it is time young people dominate Nigeria’s political space with the guidance of the older ones, saying youths in the country were more prepared for the task, citing the British Parliament where between 16 and 17 Nigerians of various ethnic backgrounds were members.

Bush, who noted that his involvement with the Young Alliance was due to his personal experience, said these great Nigerian-born British lawmakers would have remained in their country of origin “if there had been an enabling environment in Nigeria.”

“I disagree with the notion that Nigerian youths are not ready for leadership.

If you look at the British Parliament, you can find that between 16 and 17 Nigerians of various ethnic backgrounds, Igbo, Yoruba, different people are there.

“These are great people from Nigeria, if there had been an enabling environment in Nigeria, they would have been here to fit in.

It is like the saying goes, you don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great,” he said.

This was just as the convener of Young Alliance lamented the inability of leadership in the country to raise a generation of successors in many years, declaring that such was a sign of leadership failure.

“One of the abilities of a good leader is to create other leaders just like the duty of a teacher to educate and have his students pass.

If the student fails, the teacher has failed. Since the existence of Nigeria, I have been hearing something, are they (youths) really prepared? That sends a signal that leadership has failed to produce a successor,” he said.

ALSO READ: 2019: C&S leader charges youths to prepare to take over leadership

Alebiosu-Bush, however, asserted that the stage was now set for the well-focused youth to take the mantle of leadership in the country whether one liked it or not as everything was working in their favour, based on recent calls from past Nigeria leaders, including Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, General Ibrahim Babangida, among others as well as occurrences in countries outside Nigeria.

“First of all, there is something going in their favour.

The fact is that the whole world is now talking about this thing that it’s time for the young people, let the young people do this, let the young people do that. General Babangida is talking about it; former President Obasanjo said it and a lot of people are talking about it.

Whether we like it or not, the young people are coming; whether we like it or not, it is just to make sure that it would be the right young people who are coming in and not the wrong ones; that is where the focus should be,” he said.