The youths as agents of change are no longer contended with being political party thugs, but they want to play active roles of voting or being voted for as active participants in the governance of our country. According to James Bovard, ‘The first step in saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it and how we will continue to loose it, unless fundamental political changes occur’ It is YOUTH O’CLOCK.
Youths are beginning to challenge what they face in Nigeria’s electoral system; to articulate strategies that circumvent the hurdles and holistically expand the political space for active participation in the electoral process. Their voices have begun to signal their readiness to become leaders of today and no more of tomorrow. The determination has become more visible through interest aggregation by youth, to end their persistent exclusion from running for various elective positions, Yiaga Africa has helped inspiring the hopes of young aspirants in Enugu State. All attention has been directed at pursuing a paradigm shift from the old people to the young.
Nigerian youths seem to have set the 2023 elections as a deadline for ending their exclusion in elective offices and leadership. Therefore, there is a need to make it a realistic vision by ensuring that emerging pressure forces political parties to lower the cost of nomination forms in future elections–thus providing equal opportunities for younger candidates in elected positions. Once the youth translate their numbers to electoral value, it will ensure that the political leadership of the country ceases domination by age.
The general elections of 2023 is a major turning point in the Nigeria political hemisphere, because it has come to be an era of the awakening of youth, as a great number of youths are on the race of vying for various elective positions, in the Coal city state alone there have been a tremendous increase in the number of youth contesting for various electoral positions and have against all odds proven that they are capable to bring the dividend of democracy to the people that rightfully deserves it.
The upsurge has been attributed to the fact that, the current day dispensation youths in Enugu state understand the potentialities of the state in terms of sustainable job creation, decent health care, quality education, security and the general well being of its indigenes.
But notwithstanding, some youth in the state have made themselves available to some politicians and are been used as agent to mischieves, thereby creating unnecessary fears in the mind of the people who may want to come en mass and vote for their preferred candidates y thereby, enabling the recycling of the old crop of politicians that occupy those positions for their selfish gains and has resulted to a major set back both in Enugu as a state and in Nigeria as a country,
This is a wake up call for everyone especially the youth the future we hope for is now, lets join hands and fight against political ills in all ramifications and promote all the young candidate vying for various political offices in Enugu state and Nigeria at large, from the ward level to top political offices. having in mind that there must be a political change and youths as significant members of the society must be actively involved.
THE TIME IS NOW.