FOLASHADE KEHINDE
GOVERNOR Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State has urged Nigerian youths to join the political process to effect the change they desire.
He said they should explore their numerical strength and voting power to choose their leaders across the various levels of government.
Rather than agonise, Fayemi, advised the youths to organise, join politics, from the ward to the national level, noting that they constituted about 70 per cent of the country’s population.
The Ekiti Governor, who is also the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, spoke in Lagos, on Saturday, at the 2021 edition of The Platform, an annual event hosted by Pastor Poju Oyemade of the Covenant Christian Centre.
According to him, joining the political process is more strategic than seeking a regime change through the back door or giving up in frustration and cursing elected representatives on social media platforms.
The NGF chairman said, “What I am saying in essence is that we have a duty of mentorship to younger people to say to them that sometimes, you don’t always get what you push for but that not necessarily mean that is the end of the road, you keep knocking on the door, banging it and inevitably, it will open. How long it will open for will depend on your capacity to organise.
“At the risk of sounding immodest, that’s what got some of us into politics. We believe that another Nigeria is possible, a better Nigeria is possible and we should not stand by the sidelines in pushing for that Nigeria of our dreams, we are not there yet but that does not mean we will give up.”
On insecurity, he said everyone was living in fear, adding, however, that some progress had been made in the country’s counter-insurgency moves, but the Federal Government could do much better to secure lives and properties.
He, however, assured of the commitment of the Preaident Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress government to ensuring the safety of lives and properties of Nigerians.
Fayemi had also said, while delivering the keynote address at the 2021 Pre-Synod Nehemeah Summit, organised by the Diocese of Lagos, Anglican Communion, that the establishment of state police would address the insecurity challenge.
The theme of the summit was, “Towards a Safe & Secure Nigeria”.
“There is unemployment, drug, climate change and other factors fueling violence extremism. People are innately not criminal, there are sometimes sociological underpinning responsible for the criminality but we take it sequentially and stem the tide of this violence,” he said.
