The Youth Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Baridakara Gbarato has asked youths in the state and other stakeholders living and doing business in the state to shun the planned hardship protest across the nation.
Gbarato, in a statement on Tuesday, said rather than take to the streets, the youths should leverage on the various youth-friendly policies of the current administration of President Bola Tinubu, some of which he said targeted the masses.
According to him, some of the policies were the interest-free students’ loan; the conditional cash grant scheme operated by the government; the N5billion support grant for businesses from SMEDAN among others.
The Rivers State APC Youth Leader also urged the youths to give the Tinubu administration more time to implement its policies he said were aimed at engaging more youths and making them employers of labour through the various channels of business support scheme/grant.
Gbarato begged Rivers youths “to reflect on the loss of lives and properties during the EndSARS protest, the economic challenges currently being faced by Kenyans as a result of the destruction that took place during the Kenya protests and the economic sabotage witnessed in Lagos and other Nigerian states during the 2010 protest.”
He advocated for the application of the first of the “3 C’s of consultation, consolidation before confrontation” and said he was offering himself “to midwife a multi-stakeholders interface to point a way forward for the government to solve the immediate and long-term challenges facing the nation.
“In terms of deepening youth involvement in governance, the current administration has shown more youth inclusion in government than previous administrations since the return to democracy in 1999.”
He, therefore, charged the youths to prioritise capacity development and support stability of governance as a way of contributing to the nation’s economic revamp amidst global economic challenges.
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