Politicians must stop engaging youths as thugs during elections —ex-Senator Sanni, others

Former senator representing Kaduna Central District in the National Assembly, Shehu Sanni, has urged politicians to eschew violence and the engagement of youths as political thugs, for the country to make meaningful progress.

Sanni spoke recently at a youth summit organised by TotalLife Concept Ministry entitled, ‘Nigeria Politics and Thuggery: The Way Out’ held at Oluyole Metropolitan Baptist Church, Ibadan, Oyo State capital.

The activist-turned politician said: “Political thugs are private armies of politicians. There are three important factors that we should look at that breed thuggery in our society. First is political. Violence is an instrument used by politicians to mount power or retain themselves in positions of power. Desperation makes politicians to use violence to intimidate their opponents and to suppress opposition.”

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“When you aspire to be in a political office one of the advices you will be given is to keep miscreants and violent young men to fight for power. Most of these thugs are uneducated. You don’t see a degree holder in thuggery. They are mostly those the society refuses to educate, so thugs are mostly illiterates.

“If Nigerian’s political space will ever attain any point of civilization, we must do away with thuggery. In our society, you would see the young people criticising politicians before elections but on elections day,  they would do everything to ensure that the politician wins.

“Thugs are children of poor people; we don’t have thuggery in Government Reserved Areas. Thugs are needed only during campaigns but when politicians go to Abuja to collect their certificates of return, they go with their wives and children. Thuggery is a problem of an impoverished society. It is only when people are poor that you have thugs among them. Also, you don’t find degree holders in thuggery.”

However, a state lawmaker  representing Akinyele State Constituency 1 in Oyo State, Honourable Ayotunde Fatokun, said empowerment through skills acquisition was a veritable means of engaging the youth. He said the unhealthy competition in politics is as a result of the huge monetary incentive in Nigerian.

Mrs Morenike Ahmed Adeniran, a lecturer at the Federal College of Agriculture, MORRE Plantation, Ibadan was one of the speakers on the occasion.