ELECT CREDIBLE LEADERS, JONATHAN TELLS SOUTH-WEST YOUTHS

By NBF News

Jonathan
President Goodluck Jonathan's aspiration received a boost yesterday as leaders of youth groups in the South west geopolitical zone endorsed his candidature in Lagos.

The groups numbering over 70 and spearheaded by the South- West Think-Thank on Democratic Governance (Yoruba Ronu), said they were impressed by President Jonathan's sincerity of purpose and significant achievements in the last 10 months that he had been at the head of the nation's affairs.

The groups who delivered their endorsement after a consultative meeting with the President particularly praised him for his humility and his campaign strategy that emphasised wide consultations with major stakeholders in the polity.?

'We are humbled by your consultation with us and could only wish you well in your effort to turn our country around,' Francis Abayomi, Co-ordinator, South West Think-Thank on Democratic Governance, told President Jonathan who asked them to ensure that they lead Nigerians to elect credible leaders in the ongoing general elections.

Abayomi congratulated the President for the peaceful conduct of last Saturday's National Assembly poll, saying that Nigerians could now take the President's avowed commitment to free and fair election seriously. Also speaking, Comrade Ibuchukwu Ezike, Executive Director of the Civil Liberties Organisation, commended President Jonathan for consulting widely with Nigerians in his efforts to ensure credible elections hold.

The dCLO's director, however, asked the President to investigate the allegation of underage voting in some parts of the country, adding that no election could be said to be fair if there was voting by persons not qualified to vote CLO.

In his contribution, the National Chairman of the Atiku Progressive Organisation, Otunba Joseph Onasanya, said the group had decided to put its personnel and infrastructure across the country to support President Jonathan's aspiration because Jonathan had shown that he was best placed to lead the country out of the woods.

In his response, President Jonathan called on the youth to lead the fight for the election of credible leaders that would lead the country out of the woods. He asked them to be at the vanguard of the quest to clean up the polity and enthrone responsive leadership in the country.?

'You should be the vanguard to impress on the people that we must no longer be slaves to money politics,' President Jonathan said, admonishing them to persuade their friends not to sell their conscience. He asked the leaders of over 70 youths groups that attended the consultative meeting to be part of the on-going effort to rebuild Nigeria.