Northern youths vow to dislodge incompetent leaders, knock Obasanjo

The students’ wing of Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has charged the nation’s youths to dislodge incompetent leaders from office to save Nigeria from collapse.

The group disclosed this during the 14th Maitama Sule Leadership Lecture Series held in Bauchi, tagged: ‘Competent Leadership: The Only Effective Remedy to Nigeria’s Unending Ailments’.

Deputy National Coordinator of the wing, Miss Emuseh Gimba Bokunga, said the country’s youths have been taken for granted for too long. According to her, “In the past, a lot of youths lost their place in leadership. We want to reawaken the youths, most especially Northerners, so that they can claim their right spaces in government, economy and all.”

Also, a former Minister of Special Duties, Bello Kirfi, who was chairman of the event, noted that behind every successful society, there must be industrious and resourceful youths. In his words, “Youth are the mirror of every society,” and the development of every society lies on the shoulders of committed youth.

He said it was “so paramount to call on the participation of potential youths toward nation-building, bearing in mind the debilitating state of our country in the hands of few self-centered political leaders whom we must collectively and unanimously vote out of power in 2023.”

In a related development, a group, Northern Youth Assembly, blamed the socio-economic and political challenges in the country on the cumulative effect of bad governance.

It also raised concern over what it called “clandestine agenda” of some political leaders, which could fan hatred and disharmony ahead of the 2023 general elections.

This was disclosed, yesterday, in Kano, in a statement titled, ‘Unmasking Forces Behind Toxic Polarisation of the Nation’s Politics’, signed by National Assistant Publicity Secretary, Comrade Mohammed Hussaini Bauchi.

He said the group was worried by moves of some former leaders, who were part of the ongoing challenges, but are now heaping blame on the current administration.

He alleged that former President Olusegun Obasanjo “blatantly created and nurtured some of these national problems plaguing Nigeria. The plan by Obasanjo to organise some civil society groups and other critics of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and form a coalition that will mount additional pressure on the already fragile state of politics and insecurity is not new.

“Such apparent wickedness and evil intention is known to many. Obasanjo is a self-centered person that only sees fault in subsequent leaders except those serving his personal interest. His record and corrupt precedents have for long denied him any inviolability to speak from a moral prism on the current happenings in the country.”