The Osun State chapter of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), staged a peaceful walk against electoral violence and emphasis on exercise of franchise in Osogbo.
Speaking during the exercise on Saturday, Chairman of Osun NYCN, Comrade Abdulazeez Ismail, while addressing journalists said “as the umbrella for all youths and youth groups in Osun State, it is our constitutional right to let people know how important the peace of the state is. This (peaceful walk) is a bit unique because it is being organized by a well recognized and known body and being supervised by the state government and the Federal Government as the case maybe.
“However, we also understand that election is fast coming and youths are going to play a large role when it comes to election, starting from voting, to election observer and even those that are going to work as ad-hoc staff. Either we call them corpers or students, they are all youths.
“We know it is normal for youth to be involved in electoral process but we want to understand that beyond monitoring and making money from election, we also need to exercise our franchise which is very paramount.
“Our people are not interested in voting again, but we need to let them know how important them coming out is. Whoever that is voted and came out sha rule us for a number of years as stipulated by the constitution.
“You can also see military personnel here, that makes it unique. And it is different from any kind of solidarity.
“We are pleading to (political) aspirants. They already know our weak point, but we are pleading to them not to use that weak point to work against themselves. You know, if they give us 1 Naira, 2 Naira and we dance to their tunes. If we dance to your tune today, tomorrow is coming when same thing is going to repeat itself.
“And when situation like that repeat itself, it means bounce back on you, we are going to come out sometime to fight you for giving us what you give us because you feel when you give us what you give us you are free to do what you want to do.
“What we want is a peaceful environment. After that we will urge everyone to come out and vote. There is no voting point on the social media. Facebook has not recorded any of voting points and we have not started electronic vote in Nigeria. It is important everyone come out and vote.
“Like I used to say, even if you want to play football on that (election) day, you should create a time to exercise your franchise.”
