Eredo LCDA Chairman, Adeniyi Bemoans Youth Exclusion From Governance

By Babatunde Kaka

Chairman of Eredo local council development area (LCDA) in Epe, Hon. Adeniyi Saliu, says the current political atmosphere is not favourable to youth.

Saliu said this while delivering a keynote address at the Rotary Club of Epe Metropolitan Investiture and Awards ceremony.

At the ceremony themed “The Role of Youths in Nation Building”, Saliu bemoaned the exclusion of youths from Nigeria’s contemporary mainstream politics, noting that the current political terrain has been rigged against the youth.

Eko Hot Blog reports that Saliu juxtaposed the youth participation in politics in the system of yore to what the reality of today.

” Youths in Nigeria for instance must be someone who is between the age of 15 and 45. I did not stop at 40 because the average youth in Nigeria starts late especially these days. If you look at what used to operate before now, I give you instances of leadership we used to have before now, we started having the Buharis, the Atikus and the rest, General Gowon became Head of State at 29, Valentine Strasser of Serialeone became the Head of State at 25.

“The definition of youths then is different from the definition of who a youth is now. If we look at our leadership, for instance, let’s say youth involvement in leadership, look at the average age of our leaders, we have people at the age of 60 still running for councillors. We have people at 70 still at the helms of affairs as Local Government Chairmen. The average is about 55 for Governorship. This is the same country where we have people like Orji Uzor Kalu who became Governor at 39, the same country where we have Yahya Bello becoming Governor at 42. So, as we advance as a Nation, the youths of our country continue to run into trouble because the dynamics today does not favour the youths “, he averred.

Hon. Soliu noted that the relationship between the youths and nation-building is not very smooth, stressing that it left where it was to the current state. He described youths of the time of Pa Anthony Enahoro, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Bode George as such youths who went to school, had sound education and thereby had qualifications in different career paths which put them at a vantage position for leadership.

“Elites of those eras were seen as youths who took initiatives, they didn’t just go to school and sit down. They did not say that they are just elites, therefore what the politicians are doing is nonsense. They took their destiny in their hands. They interfered and intervened, they became part and parcel of leadership and politicking. As a result, the best of their crop run our country at that time. They had Integrity, those days, you won’t see people crossing from one party to another and there was discipline.

The average Nigerian leader then was disciplined, even those we thought were corrupt were disciplined. You won’t find the kind of scandals we have now in those youths then. And in fact, we were afraid to call them youths because of the responsibility they carried and the kind of roles they played in the society, it was difficult to call them youths, yet they were youths.” he said.

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The state of the economy was another problem hampering the role of youths and nation-building. Hon. Adeniyi stated that leadership and the economy are like two sides of a coin that can never be separated. The working population of societies all over the world, youths, in particular, are educated he noted. Using Epe Division as a case study and stressing the importance of education in attaining leadership positions, he charged youths in Epe Division to sit up in their quest to acquire literacy as the springing up of various industries would favour non-indigenes rather than locals in terms of job placement in the nearest future.

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