Group Tasks Political Aspirants On Selfless Service

Young Stars Development Initiative, a pro-democracy group, has urged young political aspirants to commit themselves to selfless services to their society to remain relevant in future elections.
Executive Director of the group, Mr Kingsley Bangwell, gave the advice at the Young Aspirants Leadership Fellowship (YALF) post elections retreat held on Saturday in Abuja.
The theme of the retreat was, “Deliberating on the Challenges Encountered by young candidates and their prospects for future elections.”
Bangwell said in order to remain relevant towards contesting for any political position in the future, young aspirants must render community services and make themselves known in both their districts and constituencies.
“We are holding this YALF retreat with the support of Ford Foundation to train and impact young people to build their capacity to run for political offices.
“This we believe would help increase youth participation in the 2023 General Election.
“The YALF has impacted about 380 young people from the North-West and North-East part of the country who ran for various offices and about 23 emerged winners at state levels in seven states,’’ he said.
Bangwell said the review by both those who won and those who did not and were gearing up for 2023, was to gather relevant feed backs and to make assessment and set future agenda.
The executive director urged those who were occupying political positions to have an impactful tenure, while those who were getting their acts right and gearing up for 2023 to commit themselves to selfless society.
He noted that rendering community projects and services would make those aspiring for elective positions to remain relevant even while preparing themselves.
Mr Nasir Bello-Lawali, elected deputy majority leader representing Zamfara West constituency under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), advised other young aspirants to take advantage of platforms such as YALF.
He also advised young aspirants to come up with proper strategies before, during and after any electoral process, adding that mobilising their own personal agents during elections was a key strategy.
“As a young candidate, you must mobilise your own personal agents and not rely on your party agents only,” he said.
Other elected politicians advised young aspirants to imbibe the door-to-door campaign method in order to totally capture the hearts of the electorates.