Nigerian Politicians Are Businessmen Playing With People’s Destiny, Says Delta Chairman Of National Youths Alliance

By Frank Oshanugor

Chairman of the National Youths Alliance (NYA) in Delta State, Mr. Victor Adoh has advised the Nigerian youths to be cautious of their dealings with most Nigerian politicians whom he has described as businessmen playing politics with the destiny of the masses.

In an exclusive interview with ATLANTICNEWSONLINE at the weekend, Adoh; a former local government councilor said the average Nigerian politician in the corridors of power was self-centred with little or no feelings for the masses who keep bearing the brunt of bad governance across the states of the federation. He noted that the worst victims of bad governance in the country were the youths many of whom have been jobless and helpless.

According to him, it was in recognition of the bad leadership style of the two dominant political parties (All Progressives Congress and Peoples Democratic Party), that the National Youths Alliance has emerged to help in salvaging the country by trying to bring all Nigerian youths together with a view to sensitizing them on the need to enthrone a people-oriented government at the national and state levels. Towards achieving this, the NYA founded about a year ago is fast entrenching itself in various states with a view to bringing the youths together irrespective of party affiliation.

In the words of Adoh, “My core responsibilities as Chairman of NYA in Delta State include mobilization of youths, re-orientation, providing structure for NYA Delta States youths. By structure, I mean having local government executives across the state. In Delta here, we have 25 local governments and we have our structures across the 25 local government areas. We have our structures in all the wards and also the units in Delta State. We did not do it according to the conventional way of forming exco. We went deeper into all the polling units in Delta State. In each of the polling units, we have 27-man exco members,” he explained.

Speaking on the difficulties of bringing the youths together, the NYA Delta chieftain said “it is very difficult to mobilize people especially now that we are trying to start up. We do not have sponsors for now and largely the PDP and APC have given our youths some kind of bad orientation in the past that if it is not money, it is no longer politics. The difficulty we are having now is that when you call for meetings, those who are willing to come would expect to go home with some cash which is the usual way in the two big parties where money is freely shared. At NYA, we are trying to tell our fellow youths that for us to have a better Nigeria, we need to do something different. We did not form NYA because we want to make or share money and no money politician is backing us. So it is a very huge responsibility. However, we have started giving our people new orientation, on the need to enthrone good governance for our country because if we fail to do so, nobody would fight for us.”

He explained that it has been a difficult task to mobilize people but was enthused that “some of our people are listening now especially given the hardship in the country. We have been calling meetings, organizing seminars, like in Warri recently where we gathered about 2000 youths to tell them that we cannot continue with bad governance and hardship. We made them understand that the politicians are businessmen, playing politics with our destiny and are in power to protect their selfish interest and not interest of the masses. We made them to see the need to carve a niche for ourselves. I know with God, we will achieve success very soon.”

Giving assurance about the willingness of the NYA to create a better Nigeria, Adoh expressed optimism that the Alliance when it comes on full steam would be greater than the Obidient Movement. “Let me remind you, when Peter Obi left PDP towards the end of May, 2022 and the movement emerged, within six to seven months before the February, 2023 election one could see the difference they made within the short period. If not for the Nigerian factor, Obi almost won the presidential election which in any case, he personally claimed to have won. This is beyond money and party affiliation.

“We are talking of the survival of Nigeria and the future of our unborn children. We are looking beyond money now. That is what we are trying to teach, irrespective of their party affiliation. Their present membership of any political party does not matter, what matters now is the survival of Nigeria. That is what we are going to do so that tomorrow we will be proud of our country Nigeria. We have told them that even if they are in PDP, APC or so, what matters is Nigeria because even during the Obidient movement, so many followers were in different parties but they still believed in Peter Obi and voted for him during the election. A lot of others did not belong to any party but they supported Obi because they needed a change. That is exactly what NYA is doing now, that irrespective of party affiliation, we are not forcing anyone to leave his party, but as far as the presidential election is concerned, we a need a change when the time comes.

“They should vote for NYA if NYA is eventually registered by INEC. If it is not registered, we are going to liaise with any good existing political party and see how we can provide a platform that can help us to throw up a credible, presidential candidate who can stand for the election. So for now, party affiliation does not matter. What matters is the survival of Nigeria.” `

On funding, Adoh said “the National Chairman of the Alliance, Amb. Aliu Bin Abbas directed from the outset that he would not want us to be funded by any politician because when politicians provide the funding they would like to dictate how the NYA would go. A lot of organizations in the past have come up but could not stand the test of time because the people who sponsored them were directing them on what to do and as soon as the national leader decamps that is the end of the organization. Our National leader has already declared that he does not need that type of organization. He has assured that we are going to get fund through committed like-minds and some wealthy Nigerian youths who are not politicians. So we are trying to see how we can navigate and get across to such youthful billionaires, that are not happy with what is currently happening in Nigeria. For now we are not getting fund from anybody but quite hopeful. There is hope that if NYA is finally registered as a political party, a lot of wealthy youths are ready to finance us and we are in touch with them through our national body.”