The National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) Ebonyi chapter says it will mobilize youths of the state to actively participate in the 2019 general elections.
The state President of the NYCN, Mr Sampson Aligwe said this in Abakaliki on Thursday while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Aligwe said that the body was embarking on sensitisation campaigns aimed at mobilizing youths to actively participate in forthcoming general elections.
According to him, 2019 election is crucial and Ebonyi youths will no longer sit on the fence in matters concerning making decisions to choose who will lead them.
He accused political elite of non performance, lack of vision and youth negligence, adding that it was time for youths to rise, challenge and change the old order.
Aligwe noted that youths constituted about 70 per cent of the country’s active population, adding that they must get involved in the process of choosing who lead them.
“We are no longer going to sit back and contribute little or nothing in determining who becomes our leader.
“Time has come when youths will no longer be used as political thugs but as critical stakeholders in choosing their leaders and also be chosen.
“We are going back to the basis; to the days of the Ziks, the Awolowos, the Ahmadu Bellos, the Balewas and all the frontline nationalists who as youths fought for the nation’s independence and left footprints on Nigeria’s political landscape.
“This is the consciousness we want to reinvent and imbibe in the contemporary youths who must rise and take the political destiny of the country in their hands,” he said.
He said that the NYCN was not a political movement but rather sociopolitical pressure group committed to providing direction and platform to youths to express themselves in social and political matters.
“Membership of the Council is open to youths from various social, economic and political backgrounds and we do not give support to any single political party or politicians,” he said.
He lauded President Muhammadu Buhari for not interfering in the just concluded Anambra governorship election, saying that the outcome reflected the will of the people of the state. (NAN)
