2023: ‘Obidient’ movement not a threat to us — APC Youth leader
Joel Oladele, Abuja
The National Youth Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Dayo Israel, has said the ‘Obidient’ movement of the opposition Labour Party is just a mere social media noise and they are not threatened by it.
He boasted of the strength of APC to record a landslide victory in the forthcoming 2023 general elections as they have the support of the vast majority of the youth and students in addition to other votes from civil and public servants.
Asked if he’s not threatened by the recent development of large numbers of youths mobilising to vote for Peter Obi, the candidate of the Labour Party, the youth leader said, “a Lion is not threatened by the noise of rats in his backyard. And so you must understand that we have continued as a party to play our part and the youth wing of the party has continued to rise to the occasion to mobilise the young people of our generation.
“While we are not threatened we’re not sitting on our hands, we are taking responsibilities. And that’s why we have this dynamic crop of young people who are passionate about change, because we believe that the party belongs to us.
“And that’s why we have co-opted all of these dynamic gentlemen to come together. To say that we must also begin to mobilize young people in our own party.
“We have a structure of the youth wing, the party youth wing is not going to do the work alone. We’re going to do it with the support of groups and campaign groups.
“And so our own response to all of that mobilisation is also as a general to wake up all our own field marshals, and all our battalions and Garrison commanders in our party support group across the nation, and bring them together to ensure that we begin to mobilise Nigerian youth in our various states or zones and our constituency for the party’s victory.
“So yes, we are not threatened. At the same time, we’re not sitting on our hands and expecting a miracle to happen. We’re doing the job and this is part of doing the job.”
Dayo further stated that while relying on God to grant APC the desired victory, they won’t stay idle, rather, his team shall work with various support groups across the nation and also empower youth in their numbers as a form of motivation.
He said, “We want to document all our support groups. We will then begin to create programs and activities for them. We’re going to train them, we’re going to give them skills. We’re going to work with them to ensure that all the various support groups are delivering in their various zones.
“But that’s not all, by the grace of God, we’re going to be inaugurating another special committee next week that is going to focus on the introduction of e-membership for the APC Youth wing.
“We’re going to start registering young people by the grace of the Almighty into the youth wing of our party and with that begin to mobilise young Nigerians to come and test and see that our party is good, and then begin to work with them to begin to impact on their various communities.
“We’re going to be engaging all the SSA and SAs of youth age across the 36 states of Nigeria to ensure that they are impacting on the young people in their various states. We’re going to be engaging our governors to ensure that they are also delivering the dividends of democracy in their various states.
“When everybody’s doing their work and on their toes we will make more impact and the more impact that we make, the more results we’re able to work for the party.
“So let me announce to everybody that the APC youth wing is like a lion that has risen to roar and we will not be defeated.”
Earlier in his speech, Dayo said the taskforce has been mandated to coordinate the registration and revalidation exercise of all youth/student focused and youth led support groups into a recognisable structure strongly aligned with the objectives and strategic imperatives of the National Working Committee of the party.
“The revalidation of the affiliated youth/student support groups will be opened for a period of one month starting from Friday 1st of July through 31st of July would also enable effective coordination, disciplined harmonisation of activities in alignment with the party’s goals, aid provision and accountability, as well as efficient management and enhanced operations.
“To streamline the submission process and enable easy access, sorting, and verification. Interested groups would be able to register digitally and submit all relevant documents and information required for the revalidation exercise from the comfort of their homes at www.youngprogessives.ng/support groups.
“This way, groups across the country can participate in the process virtually, thus avoiding the additional burden or cost of facilitating the logistics of physical movement of personnel and sensitive data.”
