Presently, Nigeria has been experiencing a certain level of stability having consolidated the fourth republic for over 20 years. Nigeria is one of the West African countries that had both bitter and sweet tastes of the British colonial administration many years ago before its independence in October 1960.
The independence that marked the beginning of self-government in the country faced many challenges in how establishing a stable democratic government.
These challenges are; youth restiveness, unemployment, thuggery, political and religious violence, unequal distribution of wealth, corruption, instability, electoral abnormalities, politics of godfatherism, insecurity and insincerity on the part of the political gladiators. Most of these challenges had been capitalised upon by the military junta to truncate the democratic government in Nigeria since the First Republic. Nigeria is presently experiencing its fourth republic, the first from 1960- 1966, the second from 1979- 1983, the third in 1989 which was aborted mid-way, and the fourth commenced from 1999- till date.
The intervention of the Military in a democracy between these 62years of independence has no doubt caused Nigeria some steps backwards that had affected all rounds of development that could have been a benefit of democratic governance.
Good governance and representation sustain democracy and there cannot be good governance without rule of law where fundamental human rights are guaranteed. In any government where the rule of law is not accorded its rightful position in governance, the result is a fallback in the level of democratic functions and stability.
The major population that bears the democratic instability are the youth because they end up as the product of unemployment, underemployment, and political violence.
To avert this menace in Nigeria particularly Ondo South Senatorial District, the Senatorial Candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Dr Jimoh Ibrahim Cfr has proposed youth empowerment as a nostrum to the menace. Youth Empowerment according to a renowned International scholar is regarded as a suitable tool to solve the problems and challenges that are confronting democratic governance in Nigeria because democracy cannot function with a high level of insecurity in the nation.
Given the above, it is expected that empowerment through various means reduces the rate of unemployment and averts the explosion of the time bomb of teaming youths and this is what the Aseyori mandate has projected to achieve. For functional and sustainable democracy, empowering the youth must be sustained which is the perspective of Dr Jimoh Ibrahim Cfr.
A society where youths are empowered experiences rapid growth and development and there is phenomenal social peace to some extent.
Apart from his unrepentant quest of reconnecting Ondo South Electricity to the National grid by declaring a State of Emergency on Ondo South Electricity through Legislative means, Dr Jimoh has also proposed to empower Ondo South women if elected as Senator representing Ondo South People at the National Assembly.
In the position of Araba, if women are empowered, society will be better; the children will be happy and the security problems we are battling with would be curbed.
Ondo South from 2023 would witness all-round qualitative representation having Dr Jimoh Ibrahim as Senator representing the district at the upper chamber of the National Assembly and that is why we must shun politics of resentment and join hands in supporting and voting for a competent and dynamic global scholar to represent us in the 10th Senate.
Credit: Victor Adedeji.
