Ahead of 2019 general elections, oppositions against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) seem to be on the increase even as strategies to defeat President Muhammadu Buhari’s party are been put in place.
Speaking Thursday in Abuja at the grand national summit organised by the Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM), leaders of the movement individually emphasised the need to sack the current government come 2019.
Speakers at the event which include Prof. Wole Soyinka, Prof. Pat Utomi, Olisa Agbakoba SAN, Dr Abdul Jhalil Tafawa Balewa among others, urged Nigerian youths to register and collect their Permanent Voters Card (PVC) if the current government must be changed.
The co-Chairperson, Olisa Agbakoba in his opening remarks, said the movement was targeting about 30 million youth to prosecute the project, adding that the major priority is to impact on the 2019 general elections which he said will be a “rough fight.”
Agbakoba said: “And if you agree, it means that we here must be very united. We cannot do it alone. It reminds me of when we started the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), we were exactly seven but confronted this huge military apparatus. Eventually, we became the 12th largest human rights organization in the world. It was our shared commitment. So, that is the commitment you are going to make. It is not to come to Abuja, dress fine and sit down.
“If you want to displace the APC or PDP, it is going to be a rough fight. It is going to be tough. I can see so many people without PVCs. So, if we are going to make a difference, the first thing is to get your PVCs. It is of no use going to the mosques on Fridays or Churches on Sundays to pray. Without PVCs, there will be no change.”
According to him, “Nigeria is like a big company where there are two million shareholders and in the case of Nigeria, about 200 million shareholders. Less than one thousand are controlling the rest. Think about it. The people holding you bondage, how many of them? They are not many.
“So, we have to break this bondage by participating in the affairs of our nation. That is the only way, but we need money. We do not want the money bags, but we need money. Do not kid yourself, we need money to prosecute this election but we do not need the old type of money. I have studied the National Bureau of Statistics Demographic analysis. There are 30 million Nigerian youths between 18 and 40 years. That is our base. Trump had a base. Trump won because he allowed Hillary Clinton to roam around the whole place. He focused on the uneducated white working class. We will focus, once we identify this base and work on them. If we have 10 million youths on our side, we are going to win”, he added.
Another co-Chairperson of the movement, Dr Abdul Jhalil Tafawa Balewa said the NIM was not “moved by bitterness nor are we motivated by hatred. So we shall not wipe away our past.
“If we were asked to choose only three things for our children, it will be education, education and education. You cannot have prosperity without education and as our recent experience is showing us you cannot even have peace and order without education”, he added.
On the abduction of school girls by terrorist groups, Dr Tafawa Balewa said; “heaven forbids we lower our standards so much that we start to compare how different administrations deal with mass kidnapping.”
In a message to the launch, Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka urged them to be vigilant and watch out for ‘experienced spoilers.”
“You must however exercise unrelenting vigilance. Prowling around you already are those recurrent interlopers, whose sole aim is to hijack your efforts or infiltrate your ranks with their stooges. Experienced spoilers, they are part and parcel of the very predicament you are trying to alleviate. The more notorious suffer from a messianic complex and a desperate need to obliterate the roles they have played in placing the nation in her current plight. They are adept at distorting history in order to acquire a false, sanitized identity. Be jealous of your own identity in the making, and protect the integrity of your mission. Watch out for geriatric encumbrances who will not leave the stage, not even for the prospect of infusion of fresh blood into the prostrate hulk of a once vibrant nation. Judgment awaits them, and the present should not grant them space.”
Also speaking through a recorded video, Prof. Pat Utomi, said there is need to change the recruitment processes of leaders through political party.
“There is need for a movement, thinking Nigerians, ordinary Nigerians into a huge voting bloc and the first thing is you have your PVC.”
