Sikirat Shehu
Mohammed Ibrahim Ajia, ex- gubernatorial aspirant in Kwara State has said that to fix Nigeria and restore the lost glory, a vibrant and versatile leader must be elected to pilot the affairs of the country come 2023.
Ajia, a philanthropist, who is in his middle age, argued that only youth in power would address challenges bedeviling the country.
He spoke to Journalists at the weekend in Ilorin, the state capital to commemorate 2021 world youth day.
According to the security expert, Nigerian youth can solve our problems if given the opportunity to lead, calling on them to prioritize the existence of the country in their undertakings and desist from allowing them to be used to perpetrator evil acts.
“I will encourage all of us to be angrier and audacious. We should be determined from today that our destiny is in our hands. We have to wake up from our slumber and know that everything that we are complaining about, we can actually do by ourselves. We should know that the coming 2023 election is our time.
“We must be determined to ensure that in 2023 we have a President who is less than 50 years of age. We must ensure that we retire all old people in 2023. It is our time. We must let them know that if we don’t have a President that is less than 50 years in 2023, Nigeria might not exist again.
“We must be determined wherever we are. It is not about the party, neither tribe nor religion. When the old people were like our generation, the country was moving. I listened to all of them saying they gave us milk, full chicken and pocket money while we were in school. Young people were ruling at that time.
“We must know that they will never give it to us. We must wake up and take it from them (old people). We must be determined and coordinate ourselves. Everybody is involved now; be it entertainment industry, business people. All the young people across board must come together and rescue Nigeria because it is sick.
“We need to get Nigeria well and bring it back to what they had been talking about. Let us stop insecurity, killings, unemployment, youth restiveness and drug abuse everywhere. Let us reject them using us to do evil things against ourselves.
“The message now is that 2023 is our time. We have nothing to be scared of. All we need is just determination to retire these (old) people and then take over Nigeria and put it where it is supposed to be. I want everybody to go back to your various constituencies, it is not about party now. We must bring in a President in 2023 that is below the age of 50 while State Governors should not be more than 40 years of age. It should be across board. When we do this, Nigeria will come back to what we want”.
Ajia, who decried nonchalant attitude of parents to nurture their wards in a decent way, pointed out that parents in the olden days do train their children to become leaders and that starts from home.
He said: One of the things that have caused problem in our society is nonchalant of our parents. In those days, parents nurtured their children to become leaders, and leadership starts from all sectors. From schools, parents encouraged their children to become leaders even in classrooms. All those things are not there anymore.
“So, I encourage all parents, we need to grow our children and give them good moral right from when they are growing so that they can assist the nation and contribute their own quota to building our country. We have nowhere to call our country other than Nigeria. So, we must work and ensure that Nigeria survives.”
