No Youth Bill Before The National Assembly – Ajani
The state of NYCN
The situation we found ourselves is not quite palatable because we have been in crisis over sometime, at the same time, we have tried as much as possible to change the constitution of the National Youth Council of Nigeria. We have also been working on making sure that we validate all the affiliate organisations of the Council. We have had non-elective congress to administer all these aforementioned.
We are currently preparing to hold an elective congress, where we have new leaders to lead the council for the next tenure, we are hoping that this will come to reality because it is actually a process which all the stakeholders would have to supported. It holds every three years but the youth constitution is now for four years.
Also, we are geared to opening a platform for every youth of this country; one thing I come to realise is that youth council had been cabalised in recent years and ever since I came on board, I believe that the council is not meant for any segment of the youth but for every Nigerian youths. That is what I have been able to do over the last few years.
Though my tenure is supposed to be for three years that is to elapse 2013 but sometimes you need to pay a price as a leader and that is what I did, now I am ready to abide by the rule so that we have a formidable council that all Nigerian youths can be proud of.
The National Youth Council is not about Nigeria alone, it is about every country in the whole world, so why is our own different, is not happening like this in Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Gambia and even in South Africa. But ours is like- it is too politicalised.
My experience in the last few years has shown that Nigerian youths do not believe in the leadership of the National Youth Council of Nigeria, they believe that they are just group of people who are just doing the bidding of the government or doing the beading of a particular interest.
I have been able to prove to Nigerians that the Council is not doing the interest of an individual but doing the interest of the Nigerian youths, I believe it is a gradual process, the acceptability will come, if we are able to sanitise the platform.
I have been working tirelessly with members of my group to have a council that every Nigerian youth organization can affiliate themselves with, because it is the umbrella body and it was set up by the resolution of the United Nation and is working perfectly in other countries, so it can work here also in Nigeria.
Constitution review; the role of NYCN
It is actually a serious matter, the council is supposed to taked the lead of these processed but I can tell you today we are not doing what we suppose to do. Some of us at our individual level have committed ourselves to the constitution review process.
Currently, we have two movements towards constitution review and when you see meetings we have been having in the past very few days; it has been part of our communiqué encouraging young people to be part of constitution amendment process.
Constitution stance on youth and age matters
I want to say categorically also that we (issues of youth) have not been clearly defined in the Nigerian constitution. It is quiet unfortunate that is why there has not been any recognition for Nigerian youths. We have always been seen as a liability but never as an asset.
Political leaders have always believed that youths are people who cause trouble. They are people who when you give them a little, they can do anything and that is why they run from empowering young people, because they know that the ability we have if we are empowered economically or socially, we will certainly take over some of these things. So they are scared of the growing population of the Nigerian youths.
So, it is now left for Nigerian youths at this point in time to come together as one. Our political leaders have always used divide and rule tactic in terms of dealing with youths.
The poverty among us- is not like we are not educated, it is the poverty of the mind. Some of us are educated, but we don’t understand when it involves money, we don’t see issues when it has to do without survival. So, the issue of constitution amendment is very critical for the Nigerian youth.
Even at this point, the question is you said 18 years above can vote, why is it that 18 years cannot be voted for, if I can vote for somebody, I should also be voted for. We are following all these; one after the other, during the public hearing, Nigerian youths were adequately represented, we have submitted memorandum to the committee on constitution amendment, we are still carrrying out enlightenment programmes for youth to be part of this thing.
As a Nigerian, the only document that binds us, the law is the constitution, so if there is anything that is affecting us and we cannot make it clear now, when are we going to do, women are doing their own, the special (disability) persons are saying something must be done.
In fact I must tell you today that there is no bill in the national assembly that is purely a youth bill, we go to all these politicians and ask for money we have not gone there to take a bill there and say please support this bill, support this motion; there was a time, during Senator T. U. Wada, we lobbied him, he went to the floor of the Senate and was able to get the support of his colleagues and there was a motion then for the youth employment summit which was held.
These are the things that we are expected to be doing, but most of our youths today go and beg for immediate gain. That is our problem and is affecting a lot of us, every day we hear billions, or this amount has been approved for the budget 2013, trillions. The budget 2012 how many lives of young people has it touched and we are there sitting down, nobody is going to do it for us, and we have this growing population every day, we have corps members leaving the service every day, the government can not do it alone, the private sector also needs to come in at this time.
Age Issue
It has been over flogged, I believe that what applies in Nigeria is not what applies in Ghana. What applies in Ghana is not what applies in United States, and when you look critically, United Nations will tell you, 15 to 24 years, so when I clock 24 at the level of UN, I was certainly an adult no more a youth, when UN is inviting me for a meeting I am not eligible to participate.
The African Youth Charter comes up and says 18 to 35 years, and as a country, we adopted 18 to 35 years, but the reality is that are we really sincere, because this is a country that at age 30, you are just getting admission and at age 35, you are just getting out of university and you don’t even know where you will go from there, but in a civilized set up, you know that when you move from a particular point, you move to a higher level, but in Nigeria, which level do you want to move to?
Somebody who has been minister when I was in primary school, is still in government. The chairman of our great party was the governor of Gongola state when I was in primary school, today he is the chairman of the ruling party, what gives you impression that after leaving that chairmanship, he will not want to be minister? So that is the problem we are having.
You are saying we, we should leave the youthful stage, where are we moving to, the adults should create space for us to move to where they are now, the leadership.
So, the issue of age is something we need to look into. In all political parties, talk of youth leaders, in some of ethnic youth groups, there are people who are over aged. You don’t understand what is going on with most of our leaders; they don’t want somebody in his youthful age to be in leadership position.
Error of YouWin programme
The first error is to take that programme to the ministry of finance that is the first error, there is no reason why that programme should be under finance, when you have substantive ministry of youth development. The Bible says when the foundation is faulty, what can the righteous do?
The foundation of the programme is faulty, you have the ministry of youth development with the department that actually focuses on enterprise development and you now carried a programme of that magnitude to the ministry of finance to monitor and to supervise, what you are telling us is that it has already failed from the beginning.
Forget the little people who are beneficiaries, had it been it was domiciled in the ministry of youth development, it would have achieved more than what we are achieving today.
Again, the problem of mainstreaming the ministry of youth is development has been a big problem. Ministry of youth supposed to be working with the ministry of agriculture, health, ICT but there is no synergy, the government is doing well in agriculture, no doubt about it, but how many young people are actually benefiting, what is the link between ministry of youth development and that of agriculture? The problem is how to mainstream the programmes of these different ministries.
We need to look at this. If that is done we will make a lot of difference.
Insecurity
Young people are the most affected of this insecurity, also they are the same people who are perpetrating this ungodly act. But how do you manage this together, we are the most affected, we are the perpetrators.
The government only needs to gather information. In those days, in a community that you live, you know the next neighbour of yours, now it doesn’t work like that, I don’t know who is living in my next compound, if I look too much, they will say I am intruding.
Everybody is scared to go and report if a stranger passes my neighborhood, so that you will not be attacked, in fact, my family called me, saying I should not make any statement on boko haram.
The role the youths should play is only to gather information, but the question is that, is the system ready to partner with us? What we are looking at is to see the possibility of enlightening the youths themselves, during the election we did vigorous campaign that don’t engage in electoral violence, and it worked.
If there is no Nigeria, I don’t know where all these our leaders would have benefited from and they cannot ruin the future of this country, because of their own political interest.
Single Tenure
As youths of this country, we believe in one Nigeria. We also believe that the leadership of the country should go to all zones, it should not be given just to a particular zone, it should go round, we are of the opinion that this single term of a thing should be adopted.
Message to Government
The government should partner more with the youths I want to say thanks to Mr. President for appointing a younger person as his SSA on youths and student affairs. Also, I want to say thanks to him for developing a programme that has to do with young people, but the reality is that the youths are not benefiting.
One thing is for Mr. President to have a good heart, another thing is for those people who will take it to the next level. The means of reaching the youths is not okay, how many people have access to the President? they will go to him and say we have done what you asked us to do.
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