Nigeria’s current challenges cannot be solved by lamentations, social media nor street protests.
On Thursday the Chairman of the Young Progressive Party, YPP, in Kwara State, Charles Olufemi Folayan, declared this at a press conference at the party’s secretariat in Ilorin at a peaceful rally to mark the one-year remembrance of End SARS protest.
Charles said Nigerian youths “must therefore move from the street to the ballot box to achieve the YPP ballot revolution.”
“Fellow young Nigerians, let us remain peaceful and continue to work for the peace and unity of Nigeria, let us be patriotic enough to obtain our permanent voter cards (PVC) and be ready to vote.
“Remember, there is no polling unit on the social media or on the street,” apparently rejecting the street protests which he said had not yielded the desired results.
The YPP chairman also criticized the recycling of leaders who do not lead the country anywhere, who are either too old, too sick, or too weak morally.
He charged the youths to work together in the YPP party to usher in credible leaders with new ideas, innovation, energy, and intellectual capacity that would galvanise the productive skills of the youths to generate solutions to the country’s challenges.
“We are the generation that will inherit this country, but we have to save her first,” he added.
Folayan recalled with concern the 2020 protests by Nigerian youths against police brutality and bad governance with anger and frustration demanding for a reset.
“Sadly, the response from the government was initially mute but was finally loudly violent.
“We cannot forget that many young Nigerians were injured and lost their lives in the course of fighting for a better society,” he said.
He appealed to the youths to ensure that the sacrifices of the fallen heroes will not be in vain
“We must see the Endsars protest as proof of the power and capacity to rebirth Nigeria,” he stated.
