At an interactive session organized today by the Joint Campus Committee (JCC), the youths in Lagos engaged the Governor of Lagos State, Governor Babatunde Fashola, the state’s All Progressive Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, and APC’s Vice-Presidential candidate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, where questions and issues about governance were thoroughly addressed and elucidated by the august trio.
The session was set up with the intent of knowing the actual plans of the candidates for the young generation, for Lagos, and for the nation at large, in view of the forthcoming general elections. It was held at the Banquet Hall of the Tafawa Balewa Square, Onikan, Lagos.
The programme kicked off with a sensitization session for the youths about the successes of the present government in the state, especially as touching transport, primary education, agriculture and power generation, while also detailing further plans to improve on the successes recorded in these sectors.
The questions asked afterwards bordered on issues directly affecting the youths in the state, nation building and expectations regarding all other aspects of government function. Answering these questions, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, Professor Osinbajo, and Governor Fashola were together unanimous in their promise and in the plausibility of a form of governance that is productive and people-oriented.
APC’s Vice-Presidential candidate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Governor of Lagos State, Governor Babatunde Fashola, the state’s APC governorship candidate, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, and a cross section of students at an interactive session organized by the Joint Campus Committee (JCC) in Lagos
Reacting first, Akinwunmi Ambode was quick to state the importance of the youths’ constituency in the achievement of true nation building. “Practical Youth engagement, as already evident in the success story of the present government, is core to my plans and the plans of our Party to take good governance to another level in Lagos state; there is no true development without the youths input and benefit”, Ambode said.
He moved on to say he readily identifies with the youths’ questions and yearnings, and that his experience as a professional in the state’s mainstream civil service for 27 productive years, makes him reckon that such yearnings always have their answers in selfless leadership and good governance.
He further pointed out job creation, security, qualitative and skill-enhancing education, and an accountable economy, as the main ingredients of a kind of governance that will easily cater for most, if not all, of the youths’ expectations.
While answering the questions thrown at him, Professor Osinbajo acknowledged that the “NOW” belonged to the youths, and not just the future. He noted that governance is not rocket science and therefore can be excellently done with what he called the tenets of Common Sense Revolution (CSR). He described the CSR as a concept which simply looks to apply creativity, innovation, working processes and a clear ideology to mastermind governance at all fronts, be it education, security, job creation, the economy, and others.
He stated that APC’s ideology of change intends to move away from the present conservative kind of governance into a strictly people-oriented one. He said such people-oriented governance is the type that ditches mere statistics and seeks to employ the CSR as a means to find an end to the pressing problems and questions a majority of the youths raised.
Corroborating Mr. Ambode, Governor Fashola stated that governance will be productive when capable, creative and inventive hands are simply employed to cater for the governed. While further giving reference to Ambode’s idea of accuracy and accountability, the Governor said, ” We are here to demonstrate to you that government can work, we are here to connect you with your own, youths like you, who together with me have achieved the enviable success in this government”.
He tagged the incumbent government at the centre as incapable, and urged the audience to simply see reason, first, in the idea of continuity in Lagos state, and then, change at the centre.
He summed up his remarks by stating that only “modest moderation” can be the done at state level,thus, making taking government and the centre extremely important in order to achieve an all-encompassing form of excellent governance that the nation urgently needs.
Giving the vote of thanks, the Chairman of the JCC, and leader of the Student Support Group, Comrade Sulaimon Sanusi, appreciated the presence of the the Governor and the two candidates. He expressed a level of conviction in the candidacy of Mr. Ambode and Professor Osinbajo, owing such conviction to the affirmative way in which their questions were answered by the duo. He was joined by Comrade Luta Olorunjuwonlo, the Students’ Union president of Lagos State Polytechnic, to express an endorsement of Mr. Ambode’s gubernatorial candidature to wrap up the session.
The three panelists were also joined by some if the Governor’s cabinet members, Mr. Ambode’s running mate, Dr. Mrs Oluranti Adebule, a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly (LSHA) representing Eti-Osa constituency, Mr. Gbolohan Yishawu, a LSHA candidate, Desmond Elliot, and a host of other party and government functionaries.
The youths present at the session comprised majorly of students from the state’s tertiary institutions, and were joined by other resident young professionals. The interactive session was moderated by one of their own, Comrade Nurudeen Yusuf Temilola, the President, Lagos Universities’ Students Union.