Okwe Obi, Abuja
A former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, has hinted on his plans to take part in the presidential race come 2019.
According to him, the only condition to kick-start the process would be what he described as the right circumstances.
He also said that it was high time Nigerians begun to project people with the technical know-how to take the country to the promised land.
Duke, who was a guest speaker at the 3rd Mike Omotosho Annual Lecture titled, “Mellinials as Protagonists in Nation Building,” on Monday, in Abuja, also used the occasion to encourage youths to fully participate in the electoral process by getting their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) and sensitising others ahead of 2019 general election, rather than loafing around, looking for who to heap their problems on.
According to Duke, “I hear young people say to me that why would there spend hours queuing and casting their votes when at the end their votes won’t count. And I tell that if their parents conceived them they never gave up on them considering the high mortality rate so why would there not take a chance in building this nation?
“We had young leadership at one stage or the other. Even in our first republic, besides the likes of Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa, M. T. Mbu was in his twenties when he became a minister.
“Gowon was 30 when he became the head of state. It comes back to the disaster therein because most of them didn’t have experience in governance, which led us into war. We need the combination of both.
“What I think we should be doing is to a government that is youth friendly to provide opportunities because we need to groom the next set of leadership.”
The former presidential aspirant also attributed the failure of governance on the lack of consequences for erring leaders which has given room for incompetence.
He further advised the present administration to delegate more responsibilities to ministers with deadlines.
He described the long stay of Internally Displayed Persons (IDPs) in camps as a dangerous trend because they could leave those places worst due to the dehumanising condition in which they live in.