The Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) has honored the request of the National Youth Council of Nigeria, Lagos State Chapter by announcing that form will be free for youths.
Justice Bola Okikiolu Ighile; the Chairman of the commission made the declaration during an engagement with its Stakeholders Forum held in Ikeja Division. The Chairman noted that “the youth are our children and we have carried them along in all of our programs, 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 will be free to the youths just like we have made it free to Women and people with disability.
The State Vice Chairman for Lagos East of NYCN Lagos; Comr Asoro Abubakri Olatunji ACArb who represented the State Chairman; Engr Ibrahim Adigun Olalekan at the event, had made a series of observations during the Questions and Answer 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 giving time to make presentation. He observed further that while women and people with disability 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. He further asked LASIEC to advise political parties to give room for youth on their platforms, “although the commission do 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 been sidelined and we are pleading on LASIEC to play an advisory role on the political parties.
In a separate interviews with newsmen, Asoro pleaded with stakeholders not to always let youth take to the street until they are taken seriously. “The NotTooYoungToRun campaign was for young people’s heartfelt intention and advocacy to be included in policy formulation and governance, unfortunate as the #endSARS protest incident was, it further re-echoed the annoyance and neglect of this age long call. Unfortunately, our political stakeholders are beginning to forget about these agitations and going back to the old culture, although unconlcuded, our report so far shows that most of the young people who throw their cap in the ring have been denied tickets. While it’s commendable that some parties have given consideration to women, it’s unfortunate that nothing is said of young people”.
Speaking on the steps taken by the State Chapter, he noted that the State Chairman; Engr Ibrahim Adigun Olalekan MNSE has convened a Youth and Governance Symposium last months where more than four thousand five hundred youth leaders across the State had converge to make their voice heard and request a place at the table in the fourth coming local government election and has been monitoring situations across political parties for this reason. “When we are done with our reports, we will bring it to public notice and act on our next line of action, Lagos is known to be the centre of excellence and providing exemplary leadership, we believe strongly that young people will be compensated deservedly. The State government has taken a step further in implementing one of our requests to separate the Department of Youths at the local government level, we believe strongly that stakeholders will not look away and let us lose the gain we have achieved in the not too young to run advocacy”, he said.
The youth delegation at the event includes; 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.
