By Adedayo Akinwale:
The National Youth Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Hon. Israel Dayo, has revealed the youth wing of the party has commenced grassroots mobilisation and door-to-door campaign to deliver the presidential candidate of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the 2023 elections.
Dayo stated this yesterday in Abuja while fielding questions from journalists at the national youth summit organised by the APC youth wing.
His words: “By the grace of God, we began grassroots mobilisation. But also the first thing that we did was to ensure that we begin to empower young people. We must create opportunities for employment for young people. We must create opportunities for the empowerment of young people. Also help our young people to understand what their role is in development, and building a great nation.”
The youth leader said one of the things the party did in the last primaries of the party was to reduce the nomination fees for the youth by 50 per cent in order to ensure youth are elected in the legislative houses in the state Ms and federal.
Dayo added: “We are also engaging these young people to begin to become political stakeholders in their own community, mobilising, doing door-to-door campaign and also various advocacy in the grassroots as foot soldiers to ensure that we can deliver Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the next president, Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
He boasted that the ruling party has the highest numbers of youth contrary to the perception that most of the youths are rooting for the presidential candidate of Labour Party(LP), Mr. Peter Obi.
Dayo noted: “If you are talking about the political party with the highest number of youth, you are talking about the APC. You have one person in a room, using five other accounts to tweet on social media, and you create an impression that there are a lot of numbers, they use different names or even use Yoruba names. Do you know how many people have been impacted through our trader moni programme, our grants to young entrepreneurs, our social investment program affected many families in various communities.
“Don’t listen to all the propaganda that young people are not with our party. Young people are with our party.”
The APC Youth Leader pointed out that the decision of APC youth not to be unruly or as loud as “Obidients” movement was because they adopted a separate strategy.
Israel stated: “We also have a lot of people on social media, have millions on social media, but our approach is different. We are not violent, we are not aggressive, We don’t insult people, We don’t attack people.
“So because people are making noise and shouting does not mean that you have a louder voice. It just means that they have decided to display themselves in unruly behavior. We have many intellectual, smart young people of our party across the Niger, across the whole country, even on social media and they are doing well for the country.”
On the lingering Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dayo said the federal government alone was not to blame.
He pointed out that it was unheard of for an employee to dictate how he should be paid to the employer.
The youth leader stressed that both the federal government and ASUU have to shift ground and reach a compromise to end the six month old strike.
He added: “The country’s education system is not at a standstill because most of our state universities, if not all, are in operation. The issue of the ASUU strike is about federal universities. And this is not just about the government, but also an issue between ASUU as an institution. It’s a trade relation matter that the government has committed
“I give you an example, the federal government says we are your employer, we want to pay you through IPPIS, the lecturers are saying we want to tell you how you want to pay us, pay us through UTAS. These are issues that are fundamental and must be dealt with. You work for a TV station, it is hard to say to your employer, don’t pay me by bank account transfer at the end of the month, give me cash. That is the issue that is going on here. The government is working to ensure that they can come to a compromise. Everybody needs to shift. Everybody needs to find a way–a middle ground to compromise. You cannot put the totality of the blame on the government.”
On his part, the former Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Abubakar Sadique (rtd) said the youths constitute about 70 per cent of the country’s population and therefore they cannot sit behind and allow others to determine what is going to happen.
He said: “I find this initiative very exciting and I want to encourage the National Youth Leader to organise similar fora or summits so that Nigerian youths can have the opportunity to participate and understand the challenges that are facing us and also play a very crucial role in resolving those challenges. By our very nature as human beings, we start from position of weakness to position of strength and back to weakness and position of strength is the position of the Nigerian youths.
“Therefore, any nation that desires to move forward, must really put in place a framework that will tap the energy, the creativity, the innovation of this important segment of our society. Therefore, it is important that continue to remain focus on what needs to be done to move our society forward and I am very excited that APC as a party has taken this challenge of ensuring that the youths are mobilised and the youths are given a very crucial role to play in ensuring that the nation move forward. I hope we will have similar summits so that we can mobilise the entire youths so that they can remain focused on what is required for the development of our great country.”
Also, the former Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Tukur Buratai called on the youth to mobilise the electorate to ensure that they come out en masse to vote for the right candidate.
He challenged the youths to follow the footsteps of the country’s founding fathers who mounted the saddle of leadership at their prime youthful ages and be committed and loyal to the course of the nation.
“The role of youths globally is to see that their country progress and they also protect their country in various fields. It will be recalled that our great founding fathers of blessed memory, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa, Ahmadu Bello and the great Awolowo they were in their primes as youths when they took the mantle of leadership of this country and I believe you too can do that. First and foremost you must pay attention and you must also respect your leaders, you must cultivate the attitude of followership.
“As youths, you must follow your leaders. You must follow and respect and be loyal to the present leadership and it is through that you will learn and be able to at the right time climb the mantle of leadership of this great country. You must also make sure that you get the necessary background in terms of the needs and aspirations of your country and in this regard, you must also learn and know our history. It is through that you will appreciate the challenges that this country faces and then you will surely find a solution.”
