Take Part in Political Discourse, Group Charges Nigerian Youths
Worried over the high level of disconnect between the Nigerian youths and its political system, the Maroonsquare discourse 2021has urged Nigerian youth to take active parts in the nation’s political affairs.
The Policy Director, Maroonsqaure Discourse and Convener of the online 2021 discourse, Onyiesi Chiemeke, at a two day hybrid conference held at the Federal College of Education (Technical) FCE(T) tagged “Identity Politics and the National Question in Nigeria” supported by Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, said the Nigerian youths must rise up to the task of deciding how the nation should be run, while also asking questions about how its resources are being utilized to drive economic growth and national development.
He noted that it was a result of this that the next conference tagged “Nigerian youths, politics and power” is targeting youths in the country to play active roles in the nation’s political system.
“The people we call youths today do not understand that they are old enough to determine the political function of Nigeria. We are even thinking of another topic which is Nigerian youth, politics and power. We take into consideration what is happening in the society. We are saying if this is the dominant issues, are the interpretation the society is getting correct. We may be wrong but we also have a right to say this is the right way to go,” he said.
“We are living in a society where there seem to be a dominant idea that there is only one side of the story, but we are saying that from our own perspective as a group, there are alternative narrative to the problems of Nigeria. This is a continuous programme, we have done one on Nigeria’s debt burden and last year we did one on women so our group is actually focused on alternative narrative to national development,” he added.
The Provost, Federal College of Education (Technical), Dr. Azeez Ademola, tasked Nigerian youths to seek for more knowledge about how the society is being governed and ask questions in any area they are not clear about and how the nation’s resources is being used by their leaders be it at the local, State and Federal level.
“They need to study how the society is constituted. They can only ask these questions if they are politically educated and also conscious of their environment. The discourse is just to educate them about the happenings in their environment,” he said.
A Historian and researcher, nokviews.com, Oliseh Kadishi, called on the urgent need for for Nigerian government to address the challenges and problems for continuous and harmonious existence instead of calling for restructuring, saying that this needs to be looked at as soon as possible to enable Nigeria and Nigerians to acquire the requisite stability and peaceful coexistence amenable to accelerated, sustainable socioeconomic development.
“Using the case study of southern Sudan and the failed state of Sudan, when it comes to restructuring and balkanization, especially looking at the crises ridden south Sudan and the state of Somalia, should provide warnings for Nigeria,” she said.
She added: “What plagues Nigeria needs to be settled , What is of importance is the need to address the challenges and problem of a challenging state such as national development, security, representation, tackle marginisation, infrastructural development.”
