Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has challenged Nigerian youths and activists to get involved in politics, saying this is the most potent means to effect changes in the society.
Osinbajo said the way to transform society is largely dependent on the actions and decisions of those who occupy public offices.
He spoke on Wednesday at a virtual forum where he interacted with Nigerian Fellows of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders.
According to the VP, “You need to go the extra length if you are not already involved, get involved in politics – while a lot can be achieved in civil society, government still holds the ace in terms of capacity and resources to bring social goods to the largest numbers.
“Besides, being deciders instead of pressure groups at the table in policy formulation are hugely different positions. The consummation of our great ideas to transform our societies ultimately will depend on “those politicians” as we sometimes derisively describe them.”
Prof. Osinbajo stated that African nations, especially Nigeria, cannot afford to have its best minds and most committed social activists remain only in the civil space.
“No, we simply can’t afford it, you have to get involved in politics. You have to be in the position to make the difference on the scale that is required.
“Of course, there are many who will not be involved in politics but those that are inclined should, and there will be many challenges even in the winning or getting heard in politics.
“But I want to say to you that it should be an objective that you should set for yourselves, to get involved at whatever level of politics so that you can make the difference on the scale that is required,” Osinbajo said.
Recalling his days in civil society engagements and later in politics as Lagos State Attorney-General, the Vice President noted that “it took public office for me to be able to get the scale of change that is required to make a difference.”
His words: “Without public office I would have remained a pressure group activist, I would have done some nice things, but I wouldn’t have been able to make the changes that my country required.
“I was once where you were. I was part of several civil society groups at the time. I joined the first civil society group when I was 24, I was teaching at the time. I also co-founded the anti-corruption group, Integrity, and then Convention on Business Integrity (which is still existing today and they function out of Abuja and Lagos).
“I was chair of the Legal Research and Development Centre, where we worked on civil rights issues and legal defense for the poor. We did a couple of legal defence initiatives, we got funding from donors and tried to do the best we could.”
He added: “If I count the numbers that we did all the years it will be around maybe a hundred or so. We achieved some good, but compared to the scale of the problem, it was really a little.
“But in 1999 came politics, and I was appointed Attorney General of Lagos. With that platform, we took on corruption in the Lagos judiciary and set a model. We reviewed the issues of corruption in the Lagos Judiciary and how to address it. From remuneration to discipline and we were able to put in place an anti-corruption framework that has lasted several years.
“The reason why I make this point is that other states after what we did in Lagos copied that very example. So, many states improved remuneration and a wide variety of things.”
The Fellowship is the flagship programme of the U.S. Government’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI).
Since 2014, nearly 5,100 young leaders from every country in Sub-Saharan Africa have participated in the Fellowship.
Besides the Fellows of the Mandela Washington Fellowship, other participants at the meeting were the United States of America’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard and the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, among others.
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