The national co-ordinator of ‘Got Your Back Nigeria’, Prof. Chris Mustapha Nwaokobia Jnr, said a presidential hopeful and Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello, is the preferred choice of the youths come 2023 elections.
Prof Nwaokobia Jnr, who stated this in a press statement on Tuesday, said the youth interestingly were rising up and were speaking up now.
He said before now the question had always been about who has the deepest pocket and who has the war chest, who has stolen the most money and who can deploy the most resources to win the high office of President?
Nwaokobia Jnr noted that the question today is manifestly different and young people were asking, “why not us? Why can’t one of us be President? Why can’t we galvanise and produce a President amongst us? Who says we can’t out-perform the old? What are they going to give Nigeria that they haven’t given? Why can’t they trust one of their mentees with power come 2023 or are they so poor in mentorship and mentoring that they do not have a mentee they can trust?”
“The odds are different, the times have changed and the traditional political order is up for a rude awakening. The young people have chosen one of their own for the high office of President come 2023, and they are doing so across party lines, across the nation, and indiscriminate of what partisans think.
“The young people are saying that after 61 years of trying the same tendencies at the highest level, we want to produce a President whose loyalty is to the nation and to her largest population demography, and not to a few Godfathers. The young people are saying that the time for a new nation, a new Nigeria and a new deal is now, and there is no going back,” he said.
He claimed that there was a consensus that all the political parties and indeed the two major parties must settle for young candidates, and at all levels it should be between the ages 55 and below.
“And this is centred on the time-tested call for a new tendency and orientation in leadership, for when you have tried a certain normative over and over without visible and viable change, sanity calls for a new deal and a new thinking. Any leader above 60 years of age who has not mentored a young person he/she can trust with power at the centre come 2023 is a failure, and Nigeria is not ready to reward such failures anymore.
“In the phenomenal Governor Yahaya Bello GYB, the young dynamic Governor of the Confluence State of Kogi, the young people have found their own, they have found a detribalised, a broad-minded, a patriotic and a proactive leader who sees the growth, progress and development of Nigeria as his unalterable commitment. GYB fits the call for new thinking in leadership, and fills the line of competency and capacity in governance,” Prof. Nwaokobia Jnr stated.
