Ahead of the national convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Coalition of Progressive Youth and Student Leaders has called on the leadership of the party as well as other stakeholders to allow the youth to run the affairs of the party.

The convener of the coalition, Mr Samuel Olalere, at a press conference on Sunday, said the youth must not be sidelined in the forthcoming national convention of the party.

He said, “Leadership, especially at the level of the presidency, is often not a function of brawl and physical strength. This is why we believe that the President of Nigeria in 2023 should be a man with requisite maturity tapered with age, someone with a proven ability to discover and deploy Nigeria’s vast human potential and talents to advance the progress of the country.

“The person that fit this bill in our considered estimation is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the national leader of the APC,” Olalere said.

According to him, Tinubu possesses the right mix of experience and network to give Nigeria the right type of leadership.

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He, however, said that Tinubu and the APC must strike a generational balance between the leader of the government and the head of the party by conceding the national chairmanship position to youth.

Olalere said that the party must cater for the interest of youths in the emerging 2023 political arrangements in order to achieve a good generational balance in the power equation.

The convener added that the prospect of Tinubu’s presidency at the expiration of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure, would be linked to the party being headed by a younger person of less than 50 years of age.

“This is, therefore, a direct charge to Asiwaju Tinubu to not only lend support but also lead the way for our legitimate agitations for a younger National chairman of the APC at the February 2022 convention.

According to him, the PDP’s selection of a 25-year youth as National Youth Leader no longer a news, but Nigerians will be looking forward to see what the APC will do differently by electing a youth as party’s National chairman.

He said: “We still suffer an apparent discrimination in the decision making processes of both the party and the government. This has to stop, and the time to stop it is now.

“This convention is, therefore, an opportunity for our government and the party’s structure to act its commitment and give life to the leadership aspirations of Nigerian youths as envisioned in the Not-too-Young-to-Rule Act.

“We commend particularly Messrs Saliu Mustapha, 48, from Kwara; Muhammad Etsu, 50, from Niger and Muhammed Bello, 50, from Taraba, who have thrown their hats into the ring for the position of the APC National Chairman.”

Olalere affirmed their unconditional support of the youths in the APC spread across the states, and urged the three prospective chairman candidates not to give up but rather consolidate and align in order to achieve a united front.

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