Apparently rattled by the growing influence of Nigerian youths, particularly on social media, declaring support for Mr. Peter Obi, presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), the rulling All Progressives Congress (APC) has constituted a special national taskforce to mobilise youths to counter the popularity and ensure victory for the party’s candidiate, Bola Tinubu, in the 2023 presidential poll.

APC’s National Youth Leader, Dayo Israel, who inaugurated the committee at the party’s national secretariat, yesterday, said Obi is no threat to Tinubu in next year’s poll, likening the support of the Labour Party candidate on social media to the noise of a rat at the backyard of a lion.

He announced former Kwara State Commissioner for Information and former President of the Pan-African Youth Council, Ben Duntoye, and the APC Deputy National Youth Leader as the taskforce chairman and deputy respectively.

Asked if he was threatened by the large numbers of youths mobilising to vote Peter Obi, he replied: “First, a Lion is not threatened at the noise of rats in his backyard. So, you must understand that we have continued as a party to play our part and the youth wing of the party has continued to rise to the occasion to mobilise the young people of our generation. While we are not threatened, we are not sitting on our hands, we are taking responsibility. And that is why we have this dynamic crop of young people who are passionate about change, because we believe that the future of the party belongs to us. That is why we have co-opted all of these dynamic gentlemen to come together, to see that we must also begin to mobilise young people in our own party…

“Yes, we are not threatened, but at the same time, we are not expecting a miracle to happen.”

Israel said the national taskforce was for the registration and revalidation of youth-led and youth/student focused support group for 2023 presidential election. “We are doing the job and this is part of doing the job. We want to document all our support groups. We will then begin to create programmes and activities for them. We are going to train them, we are going to give them skills. We are going to work with them to ensure that all the various support groups are delivering in their various zone.” (Daily Sun: Excluding headline)

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