Nigerian youths have been advised not to participate the proposed national youth conference announced by President Bola Tinubu in his 64th Independence Anniversary speech.
Public issues analysts and youth activists, Dr Efio Ita Nyok and Andy Mba Ukweni, who were guests on a radio discourse programme, Let’s Talk Nigeria, said such confab will be sheer waste of national resources.
They said all that the President needed to hear or know have been said loud and clear by the youths and other Nigerians.
Phone-in callers to the radio programme also dismissed the President’s proposal for a national confab.
Ita said, “Nigerian youths should boycott the proposed one month confab. It’s going to be a charade. It will be dominated by APC members.
“We don’t need the confab. It will be a drain on the national resources. President Tinubu is already hearing from the youths. Tinubu should release youths in detention. He has no morality to call for the confab when he himself had been leading people to boycott other national confabs organised by his predecessors.”
Nyok added that the confab is not a constituent Assembly and its reports would again be dumped as other such reports.
Speaking, too, Andy MBA Ukweni said, “Such confab is not what Nigerians want. We want him to work at bringing down the cost of fuel, cost of living. People are crying and dying. Everyday people are talking and lamenting over terrible hardship. Isn’t that enough message to him?
“The many complaints and protests around the country are enough for the President to act instead of embarking on another one month journey to squander national resources.”
Another radio caller, Michael Etom, said, “Any youth that will participate in the confab have no future. What have been the outcomes of previous confabs?”
However, an All Progressives Congress, APC, stalwart, Elder Edim Inok stressed the importance of the confab.
“I agree that Nigerians are going through economic mess and hardships but the confab is important.
“President Tinubu will definitely set up a committee to study and implement outcome of the confab,” Inok, who is also a guest on the radio program, said.
Boycott Tinubu’s national youth conference – Analysts, activists urge Nigerian youths