Jare Olukotun
The Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) has honoured the request of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), Lagos State Chapter, by announcing that forms will be free for youths contesting for the Chairmanship and Councillorship elections.
NYCN State media office in a statement on Friday, said that, Justice Bola Okikiolu Ighile, chairman of the commission made the declaration during an engagement with its Stakeholders Forum held in Ikeja Division.
The LASIEC chairman noted: “The youth are our children and we have carried them along in all of our programmes, we have held a series of meetings with various youth groups and we will continue to engage them. We have reviewed the request made by the youth and we felt that in the spirit of inclusion, forms would be free to the youths just like we have made it free to Women and people with disability.
The State NYCN chairman, Engr Ibrahim Adigun Olalekan, represented by State vice chairman, Lagos East of NYCN Lagos, Comr Asoro Abubakri Olatunji, ACArb, at the event, had made a series of observations during the session by calling the attention of the commission to the fact that youth are stakeholders and should have been allowed to speak when other stakeholders were given time to make presentation.
He observed further that while women and people with disabilities had been given consideration by making forms free for them in the spirit of inclusion, youth should be included as one of the marginalized groups in the country despite accounting for more than 60% of the country’s population.
The NYCN chairman further asked LASIEC to advise political parties to give room for youth on their platforms: “Although, the commission does not have the constitutional power to mandate political parties on who should be given their tickets, we are collating our data, and result so far shows that we are losing on the gain of the last local government election where youths were represented.
We will make our report officially public when the processes are concluded across political parties, but so far, young people are being sidelined and we are pleading with LASIEC to play an advisory role with regard to the political parties.”
He warned against allowing the youth to go back to the street to protest because of neglect as witnessed in the “The NotTooYoungToRun” and “#endSARS” protests.
He said that youths in the state made their voices loud at a recently organized Youth and Governance Symposium last month, when they demanded inclusiveness in the forthcoming local government elections.
The State NYCN vice chairman said that the body is monitoring developments across the parties in the state.
The youth delegation at the event included; Comr. Funmilayo Babawale Joseph – Youth Coordinator Agboyi-Ketu LCDA, Comr. Omoghafe Blessing Youth -Coordinator Ikeja LG, Comr. Comr Joseph Agomenu -Coordinator Badagry West and Comr. Shittu Moshood Abayomi- Coordinator Egbe-Idimu.
