More Youths Should Be Involved In Politics – Hon Bello

A former House of Assembly aspirant and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos, Hon Olaide John Bello, popularly known as OJB, has charged Nigerian youths to get more involved in politics and equally emulate the collective virtues and nationalistic approach of the nation’s founding fathers as the build up to the 2019 general elections kicks off.

Hon Bello also called on all concerned stakeholders to ensure that political leaders sign a peace pact against the use of youths for violence during the 2019 general election. He pointed out that many of the security challenges Nigeria was facing were due to non-involvement of the youths in the productive sector of the economy. He observed that electoral violence had been a recurring decimal in Nigeria, saying its frequency, character and dimension were frightening, even as the 2019 general elections drew near.

According to him: “It is now becoming obvious that all the violence linked to elections are mostly perpetrated by the youths who are not only in the service of the politicians, but financed by them so long as they do their biddings. With their seeming lawlessness and lackadaisical attitude to the Nigeria project, the youths are the willing ready-made weapons of politicians, who think more of their parochial interests than the development of the country.

Hon Bello urged youths to make democracy work in the country by ensuring that thuggery, vote buying, snatching of ballot boxes, pre and post election violence were stopped. He identified lack of empowerment as the major factor hindering youths’ participation in politics, advising that self empowerment was the only way to contribute meaningfully to the society stressing that this can only be realized by not relying on certificates. He posited that self empowered youths cannot be willing tools for perpetration of violence as exemplified by the nation’s founding fathers andbelieved that anyone who is old enough to vote should be old enough to run for office as well.