Wole Adedeji, Ilorin
Youths and the womenfolk in Nigeria have been advised to form a political party of their own in order to have a desired political relevance in the country.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), in Kwara State, Malam Garba Attahiru-Madami, gave the advice, in Ilorin, the state capital.
This was when he received the Conscientious Youth Empowerment Foundation ( CYEF), in his office.
The CYEF team was led by its Executive Director, Abiodun Oyeyiola accompanied by his other executive members.
Madami had said from all available statistics, women and youth constituted over 80% of voters in any election in the country pointing out that according to statistics and records of the Continuous Voter Registrations (CVR), which he had double checked, 80% of registered 242qqvoters were youths and women.
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His words, “What they need to do is to come together and form a political party which will now provide a platform for both men and women to contest elections.
“That will remove the issue of marginalisation, lack of money to contest and cannot compete with old politicians” saying, “as at today in Nigeria any aspirant seeking for any political position, he or she must belong to a political party”.
He was of the opinion that if the youth of Nigeria would continue to wait for the existing political parties to give them platforms, they would merely be wasting their time because it would never happen.
“The old politicians will never quit and give you the opportunity, so you have to grab the opportunity. You have to get the opportunity and the only way to do that is to revolutionalise politics in the country and that is by teeming up with the women to form a political party,” the REC added.
He added that elections in Nigeria were becoming more transparent, and rigging was becoming impossible saying that this was because results of elections are now declared right from the polling units to collation centres.
“The results are already at the polling units, everybody has seen it from the polling unit, to ward collation centres, to local governments, state and national.
“There will be no chance for any manipulation of election results, so the youths have a good chance of ruling this country, of running the government of Nigeria in the future if they come together with the women form a strong political party.
“That will change the atmosphere, it will change the politics of this country,” the REC added.
He also advised the Nigerian youths to shun double registrations during the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) adding that double registration was a criminal offence admonishing them to run away from hard drugs because taking and abusing drugs may make them lose focus on their study and career prospects.
Earlier, Abiodun Oyeyiola, the Executive Director of CYEF said they were in the INEC office to appreciate the good Attahiru Madami was doing in Kwara adding that his group had erected four billboards in strategic locations in Ilorin to sensitise youths in Kwara on the need to register as voters.
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He told the REC that members of the group had also been going round registration areas in Ilorin to monitor the level of participation of youths in the exercise.
Oyeyiola appealed to political parties to give youths a chance in the affairs of the country, adding that as future leaders of Nigeria, youths were not given enough opportunity to express themselves in the scheme of national affairs.
“Youths have the highest population in Nigeria with over 60 per cent of the population; we are a key stakeholder in voting. Despite this, youths don’t come out to participate in elections.
“We discovered that majority of the youths have not registered as voters, so we use our laptops to register them online. We also educate youths on their rights through our weekly radio program on Royal FM 95.1,” Oyeyiola added.
He later presented a framed certificate of merit to the REC.
accompanied by members of the group; Kehinde Akinsola, Abosede Ajiboye and Dapo Olumide.
