The Federal Government under the leadership of Senator Anyim Pius Anyim and the Minister of Special Duties vowed to shutdown the National Youth Summit that took place at the International Conference Center.
The Youth Summit which started on the 25th of September (Thursday) with over 7,600 delegates was to be shutdown since the Summit, according to insider sources, has no PDP agenda and the government could not afford to take such chances.
The organisers of the Summit, Golden Heart Foundation became handicapped and stranded even though they had paid about 11million Naira to use the facility.
As it was difficult for the Senator Anyim to shut down the summit, the case was reported to the FCT minister who boosted that he is coming right away to shut the facility down.
Before the arrival of the minister, the news had gone round in the social media and the youths were already threatening to stage a protest. This weakened the strength of Senator Bala Mohammed, who then called the management of the National Youth Summit into a closed door meeting, which lasted for two hours.
The major issue in the meeting was whether the summit was an APC agenda or not. It took a lot of explanations before the minister accepted that the summit was neutral. Then the minister then said that before he could offer any assistance, he must be allowed to address the youth. This offer was obviously accepted by the organisers.
The FCT minister and the minister for special duties came to the summit and addressed the Youths. Sen Bala made every effort to turn the event into a PDP affair, stating that the President sent him to read his goodwill message to the youths. And that the President is willing to offer more jobs to the youths etc. The youths applauded.
The National coordinator while offering his response begged the Minister to allow the Summit to continue in ICC, but the Minister politely stood his grounds and was disappointed that the National Coordinator would bring up the issue in the public, thereby undermining his political effort for the day.
This led to an emergency for National Youth Summit organisers who had to quickly tear down all the summit apparatus to go to another venue.
However, the official Press Release from the Golden Heart Foundation is that the Ministers acted in the interest of National Security and without any political undertone.
Lots of questions are arising in the mouths of over 7000 youths who saw the ministers asking them out of ICC. They are asking why the government allow Golden Heart Foundation to mobilize youths from 774 local government areas just to shut them out at the middle of the event?
The youths are also asking, why can’t the government hold the Merit Awards at the banquet hall since they had “mistakenly” hired ICC out?
Another question from the Youth is as to why can’t DSS use the whole of Sunday, to prepare for the Merit Award. Why does it have to be 48 hour clean up?
The delegates moved out of the facility peacefully as the organisers strongly insists that they are peace loving.
If they government is sincere about its transformation agenda, how can they shut down over 7,600 youths that have come together across Nigeria to deliberate on how to move Nigeria forward?
The future of Nigeria lies in the Youth and it time the youth rise and say no the unwarranted suppression from any level!
