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Lawrence Bajah – Abuja
The Minister for Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, has urged the youth in the country, to seek ways of participating in electoral processes and to have a say in the governance of Nigeria.
Dare made the appeal during the 5th Assembly of the Nigeria Youth Parliament, held at the Nigeria Army Resource Centre, in Asokoro Abuja, on Thursday.
The Minister, who was represented by the Director, Network and Social Mobilisation, Amina Dauran, said the role of the Nigerian Youth remained a critical factor in the conduct of free and fair elections in the country, adding that the youth had been denied the chance to count and be counted in the electoral process.
According to the Minister, the Ministry has done its best to promote youth participation in the electoral processes, through its workshops on Effective Youth Participation in Elections, Governance and Electoral Processes, adding that the Ministry will continue to support the NYP by scaling up initiatives to ensure participation and meaningful engagement of every youth group.
He said; “As Nigeria prepares for elections, the role and place of the youths in Nigeria’s capacity to conduct free, fair and peaceful elections remain a very critical factor in the process. Nigerian voters especially the youths have been denied the chance to count and be counted in the process of choosing who governs them; a situation that has become a key driver of conflict in the transition in the transition process in Nigeria.
“My ministry in view of promoting youth participation and representation in electoral and decision-making processes, organized capacity-building workshops on ‘Effective Youth Participation in Elections, Governance and Electoral Processes for youth in Southern and Northern Nigeria.’
“I want to urge you to continually seek ways of participation in electoral processes, have a say in how you are governed, aspire to lead, let me finish with a quote, an appeal to all of you from one of the most inspirational and revolutionary political leader, Nelson Mandela: ‘To the youth of today, I also have a wish to make: be the scriptwriters of your destiny and feature yourselves as stars that showed the way towards a brighter future.”
Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Nigerian Youth Parliament, Dr Azeezat Yishawu, said the purpose of the engagement, was to allow political parties and their candidates to engage with youth groups since they had not done so in the months leading up to the elections.
Yishawu said; “This idea came up because in the last 12 months, we have seen political parties organize pseudo engagements, rallies, up and down, and not really focus on the private sector where young people are, and in the development space as well. And we also realised that there is no proper engagement from political parties on their party manifestos for young people, outside their political parties.
“So, what we did today was to invite political parties, APC, PDP, Accord, SDP, Labour Party, NRP, and those that we can get our hands on, to be here for this program, to provide a serene environment for them to be able to engage the youth on their party manifesto. We expect them to be able to engage our participants on what they have as plans for youth development on education, which is very important, technology, health, women, and persons with disability as well”.
Representatives of the ruling All-Progressives Party(APC) and the People’s Redemption Party(PRP) fielded questions about their parties’ manifestos and their plans for the economy, should they win the elections.
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