Students Can Determine Nigeria’s Next Leaders, Says Lawmaker

Kemi Olaitan  in Ibadan

 A member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Shina Peller yesterday noted that with the numerical strength of over 40 million, students alone had what it takes to determine the country’s next leaders.

 Peller, currently representing Iseyin/Itesiwaju/Kajola/Iwajowa Federal Constituency in Oyo State, challenged Nigerians, particularly the youth to stop prioritising the presidential election as the most important but rather the least important of all elections.

 He made the call while featuring on Arise News Channel yesterday, saying that was the only way Nigerians could do things differently and achieve a desirable result.

 Peller had defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Accord Party after he lost the senatorial nomination to Senator Fatai Buhari. He subsequently emerged the senatorial candidate of Accord Party.

While featuring on the programme, he charged the youth “to ride on it by drumming support for fellow young people vying for different elective positions at the federal and state levels.”

 He explained that the president “is just one person out of the system, he cannot veto on critical issues affecting us as a country.”

 He said: “Let us take the National Association of Nigerian Students for example. The universities were shut down for almost one year. Students have a population of about 40 million.

 “Every student has a parent, every student has a lecturer. Every student has a relationship with the non-academic staff. Every student has a relationship with the host community of the school. So, they have the capacity to reach out to people.”

He then challenged Nigerian youths in general to come up with strategies that will enable the country usher in a pro-youth government in 2023, stressing that the strategies should include setting up criteria for Identifying credible candidates.

 “As we all know there are more young people in the world today and this demographic is important in developing ideas to catch up with the digital world. On this note, age becomes the most important criterion to create space for more young people in governance.

 “For House of Assembly, House of Representatives, Senate and Gubernatorial candidates, the age limit should be 25 to 45, 30 to 50, 35 to 60 and 40 to 60 years respectively while we leave the presidential at 75 years at most as proposed by the WE2GEDA movement.”

He also lamented that it was disturbing that less than 100 days “to the 2023 elections many Nigerians are in search of a presidential candidate as a messiah instead of everyone working harmoniously towards achieving a functional system that works for all.

“Whoever emerges the president should not be the first thing in the mind of the people while trying to build a desirable structure using a bottom-to-top approach and identifying competent young candidates across different political parties.

“I believe the presidential election is not the most important in Nigeria. What is most important now is to develop a system that works for everybody.

“A single man can not make up a system. The president is just a component of the system and cannot singlehandedly address critical issues affecting us as a country.”

On who will likely emerge the country’s president in 2023, Peller stated that it was too early for anyone to predict that confidently.

By January 1, 2023, the lawmaker explained that people would know whose chances are brightest among the candidates.