Ahead of the presidential election slated for February 2023, an entrepreneur and youth development advocate, Mrs Khadijah Okunnu-Lamidi, has called on the Nigerian youths to stand up and contribute to the country’s political growth and development.
The young Okunnu-Lamidi made the call on Monday in Lagos at the formal declaration of her intention to run for the office of the president in 2023.
She said her motivation was anchored on the desire to make Nigeria work for its diverse populace by harnessing the power of its teeming youths to unleash the country’s latent potential as a force to be reckoned with globally.
“My ambition is to restore hope for a better Nigeria. I do not come to this lightly or out of vanity or frivolity. I come to this with humility and with responsibility and with the burden of a generation to whom the future of Nigeria belongs.
“Nigerians of our generation believe in the promise of an equitable and just political union which consolidates the diverse strengths of our people and which harnesses the vast untapped resources of our great nation for the common good. Nigerians of our gender believe that we are heirs to the same promise and that our contribution to the character, stability, peace and progress of Nigeria deserve recognition and reward.
“The challenge of the presidency is to make Nigeria work for all of its diverse peoples. It is the most powerful office in the land, but it is a place of service, responsibility and duty, and not a place of arrogance or show off. Nigeria is not working for us,” she said.
She lamented that youths under the age of 30, who represent about 70 per cent of Nigeria’s population, have been at the receiving end of bad governance. She added that the youths account for 13.9 million of the unemployment figures which stood at 21.7 million in the second quarter of 2020.
She also decried the low life expectancy in Nigeria, which she noted was the lowest in Africa, even as she also raised the alarm over the high infant mortality rate, which she said, hovers at 57.701 deaths per 1000 live births.
The presidential hopeful also decried the spiralling rate of poverty, which she attributed to the worrisome unemployment indices in the country.
However, she reiterated that there is hope for the country, especially with the emergence of a competent president in 2023.
“A president for all Nigerians must have integrity, competence, vision, energy, empathy and compassion for all, and more so for the weak, the dispossessed and the disenfranchised. I am ready to contribute to the growth of the country. I think it is time for the youths to stand up. I have been complaining for so long and I think it is time to make a move.
“Most of the leaders have failed us and there is no need to talk in hush tones any longer. Let’s start a conversation on a national stage. People are complaining; people are tired but it seems that no one wants to start this conversation for some reason but I am ready to make myself available to be the arrowhead for my generation,” she said.
The SUN
