The Youth Representative in the National Caretaker Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Ismail Ahmed, has said that youth and women members of the party should not be taken for granted ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Mr Ahmed stated this when he inaugurated various committees ahead of the forthcoming first National Progressives Youth Conference at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja.
He noted that for the first time in many years, President Buhari will not be on the ballot box and won’t be coming to the table with guaranteed votes.
“I keep saying it that 2023 is going to be a battle for the young people, as it has been clearly demonstrated and I say it every time that President Muhammadu Buhari always comes to the table with ten million votes in every election he has participated in.
“But for the first time in twenty years, in 2023 President Buhari will not be on the ballot, and because he will not be on the ballot; which means we have to go scouting for those ten million votes elsewhere.
“At best if the President is giving us some of his supporters, which he as a Bonafide member of the party will do, the best we can look for is probably 50% of those 10million votes. This means we have to go searching for other five million votes elsewhere.
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“Those five million votes are with the young people and women. In 2023 young people are going to demand what is it that you are going to do for us? They need to know that they have a table, a seat and the decision-making table or else forget it they will go to the person that will give them that hope.
“So, we need as young progressives to institutionalised the ideals of being a progressive because if they say you are an APC member, you should just be more than a card-carrying member,” he said.
Mr Ismail described the forthcoming national youth conference of the APC as the biggest ever in the history of politics in Nigeria.
“It is going to be a two days conference where a lot of substantive things and politics are going to be discussed, our road map, vision, demands and what we feel that the APC should be and what it already is.
“Some of you whose parents participated in politics or older brothers participated in politics in the Second Republic or the first Republic, can still tell you till today that I am NEPU or PRP, why because it was an idea which is not an elitist idea, it is something that runs all through to the grassroots.
“So being a progressive should mean something. Young people need to come together and see, this is what we are deciding for ourselves. We are going to make sure that it survives, and how do we do that is by coming together and make the road map of what we expect and what is it to be a progressive so that we can draw other young people into this movement and grow it as well and we can deliver the party and deliver the country both in 2023 and beyond.
“It is on this premise that we have decided to organize the first-ever National Progressives Youth Conference and you all have been chosen to deliver the best and most impactive conference,” Ismail said.
Zainab Sa’id
