Nigerian youths are prepared for leadership – Young Alliance

By Kazeem Ugbodaga

A youth movement, Young Alliance has said youths in the nation are more than ever prepared for leadership positions in the country.

Young Alliance is a movement of young professionals with the aim of mobilizing Nigerian youths to canvass for leadership positions, instead of leaving it in the hands of old people.

Convener, Young Alliance, Hon. Dayo Alebiosu-Bush said at an interactive section in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, that he decided to support the group because of his political experience and that it was time young people to dominate the political space with the guidance of the older ones.

“I disagree with the notion that Nigerian youths are not ready for leadership. If you look at the British Parliament, you can find that between 16 and 17 Nigerians of various ethnic backgrounds, Igbo, Yoruba, different people are there. These are great people from Nigeria. If there had been an enabling environment in Nigeria, they would have been here to fit in, it is like the saying goes, you don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.

“One of the ability of a good leader is to create other leaders just like the duty of a teacher to educate and have his students pass. If the student fails, the teacher has failed. Since the existence of Nigeria, I have been hearing something, are they really prepared? That sends a signal that leadership has failed to produce a successor,” he said.

Alebiosu-Bush stated that whether one liked it or not, the youths must take over as everything was working towards their favour all over the world, with Nigeria not an exception.

“First of all, there is something going in their favour, beside the fact that the whole world is now talking about this thing. It’s time for the young people, let the young people do this, let the young people do that. General Babangida is talking about it; former President Obasanjo said it and a lot of people are talking about it. Whether we like it or not, the young people are coming; whether we like it or not, it is just to make sure that it would be the right young people who are coming in and not the wrong ones, that is where the focus should be,” he said.

He added that Young Alliance had its strategies which would be unveiled at the appointed time to mobilize young people to dominate the political space in the country, beginning from Lagos.

On the rising number of young people aspiring to be president of this nation in 2019, Alebiosu-Bush said he did not subscribe to that idea and advised them to start from the parliament, rather than going to the top without experience.

“If you ask me for my opinion, bubble would always rise from the bottom to the top, it is law of nature, whether you put boiling ring in the water or you boil with kettle or even when you boil on the cooker. I think the most important thing here is to look at what kind of people make our policy makers, what kind of people are going to the State Assembly and what kind of people are going to the National Assembly, what kind of councilors do we have?

“As a matter of fact, the first thing people do whenever there is a coup is that they chase out the parliament, that is the first thing. I think for me, it is important to get the young ones to go and stand for elections into parliament. We’ve seen the likes of Obama, Bill Clinton, all of these great names, all of these known names started as parliamentarians, get enough experience,” he said.

According to Alebiosu-Bush, the mission of Young Alliance is “how can we get the young generation to dominate the political space with the guidance of the older ones? It is all out there, we want the young people, it is better that they are the right people and that would bring about solution to our problems.”