Anti-corruption activist and founder of Follow The Money, Hamzat Lawal has opined that no Nigerian politicians love young people.
Gatekeepers News reports that Lawal who was a panellist during a discussion on ‘This Thing called Democracy’ on June 12 at Shehu Musa Yar’Adua centre in Abuja, the nation’s capital, charged youths to grow beyond the ideas of taking selfies with politicians but instead “ask questions on how your money is spent.”
Lawal stressed that activism is different from politics and anyone that wants a change has to bring new ideas. He, however, noted that the system does not want new ideas, saying the Late M.K.O Abiola lost his life while trying to usher in new ideas.
M.K.O Abiola’s first son, Kola Abiola was also present at the event which was moderated by Sulaiman Aledeh, an International Journalist, Media Strategist and Publisher of Gatekeepers News.
Kola Abiola, at the beginning of the discourse, urged the participants to observe 2 mins silence in honour of his late father, Kudirat Abiola and others who lost their lives in the struggle for democracy.
Gatekeepers News reports that Abiola was Nigeria’s President-elect 28 years ago (June 12, 1993) but the election results were annulled by then military president Ibrahim Babangida. He was arrested in 1994 after he declared himself the lawful president and was assassinated on 7 July 1998, the day he was due to be released from prison.
“I felt what Nigerians are feeling 20 years ago. It took the government 28 years to apologise for robbing us of our democracy,” Kola Abiola said during his speech.
Panellists at the event; Cynthia Mbamalu, a feminist and co-founder of Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth & Advancement (YIAGA); Dr. Abdulmumin Yinka Ajia, a researcher and former governorship candidate of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP) in Kwara State; Hamzat Lawal, founder of Follow The Money; Sandra Ezekwesili, a Broadcast Journalist; Idayat Hassan, Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD); and Andrew Obuoforibo, a Politician, Writer, Social Commentator all focused on things Nigerians need to do to maintain democracy.
One of the panellists, Cynthia Mbamalu charged the youths to take over leadership starting from the grassroots to the State Assemblies and National Assembly.
Cynthia, who is a promoter of not-too-young-to-run, noted that youths’ participation in Governorship and Presidency has been thwarted with the high cost of nomination forms.
On his part, Ajia noted that ‘The Thing Called Democracy’ is a process and has no destination, while Andrew, who is also a senior product manager at a tech company, stated that the technology sector provided an avenue for Nigerians to express themselves freely referring to Twitter that gave Nigerians a platform to promote their EndSARS campaign in 2020.
According to Andrew, the real reason Twitter is suspended indefinitely in Nigeria is due to the support it gave Nigerians during the #EndSARS protest and not because it deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet recently.
He advised Nigerians to convert their anger into achieving true democracy.
The highlight of the event was the launch of a mobile app; Tribe Naija, where Nigerians can now converse.
Tribe Naija is like a community where like-minded people can rub minds on trending topics of interest and it is available on the App Store and Google Playstore.
