Thuggery: Council warn politicians to keep off members

The National Youth Wing of Christian Council of Nigeria (YOWICCN), has warned politicians to stop destroying their future by using them as thugs during elections.
The President of the council, Mr Abel Ogwuche, issued the warning on Saturday in Abuja when the group visited Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at New Kuchigoro Camp and donated food items.
Ogwuche expressed regrets that politicians only thought about themselves and their families.
“As a Christian group, we feel very worried that we the youths who are potential leaders are being used as thugs before, during and after elections.
“They are only destroying the future of our beloved nation because when they give us (youths) money to cause violence during elections, they are not only destroying us they are also destroying our nation.
“It is not fair for politicians to keep using and dumping us as if we have no future.
“The unfortunate thing is that they don’t use their own children for such violence but they will rather use the children of the poor like us,” he said.
The YOWICCN president however challenged youths across the country to use the opportunity of the signing of the Not Too Young To Run bill into law to seek to occupy various offices in the 2019 general elections.
“We are worried because these elders have been in power for long and they keep recycling themselves; they have refused to give way for us, the youth.
“But with the signing of the Not Too Young To Run bill into law by President Muhammadu Buhari, the time has come for us to rise up as youths and take over power from these old politicians because they think only of themselves and their families; they don’t have us at heart,” he said.
Ogwuche, who led other youths, observed that food was the most important item that the IDPs needed at the moment to ameliorate their predicament.
“That is why we are moved to make these donations at this point in time. This gesture is to cushion the hardship being experienced at the moment as IDPs,” he said.
Addressing the IDPs, he said: “We all know that it is not your own making that you are here; none of you is happy to be here. But because situation calls for it, we decided to come and identify with you.
“There is nothing we will give you that will be equal to what you have lost, but the little we have come with is just to support you.’’
He appealed with the Federal Government to intensify efforts at ensuring that the displaced persons return to their homes in the shortest possible time.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that items donated include bags of rice, cartons of Indomie noodles and biscuits. (NAN)