FCT Youth-Network Flags-Off Election Campaign

By: Prudence Okonna

The Fellowship of Community Trustees Youth Network (FCT-Youth Network) has flagged off its election campaign to elect officials that will pilot the affairs of the group for the period of 2 years.

Speaking at the election debate and campaign flag-off, the Executive Director of Abuja Original Inhabitants Youth Empowerment Organization (AOIYEO), who is also the Special Assistant to the FCT Minister on Youth Matters, Isaac David, said the debate was organized to create a level playing ground for all the candidates contesting for the youth representative positions.

David explained that the Youth Network is a Non-Governmental Organization and therefore, apolitical, and a youth platform that is community-based participation without external influence.

His words. ‘’Our religious leaders and politicians are not here because it is purely for the youths not for the politicians or elders. We respect them, we love them and we recognize them as our fathers’’. 

David urged all delegates not to be onlookers or sit on the fence but to contribute to resolving problems in their various communities; insisting that the youths have a major role to play in the socio-economic development of any society.

While stressing that the campaign should be issues-based, the Special Assistant to the Minister said the debate should dwell on questions of community development, empowerment, and security, for the overall benefits of the rural dwellers.

Also speaking at the occasion, the Project Manager, AOIYEO, Bitrus  Lawrence-Garki, said the Youth Network is creating a sustainable structure for the people across the 62 Wards of the Federal Capital Territory to participate in discussing and proffering solutions to problems that confront their communities

His words: ‘’FCT comprises of 858 communities and this platform is going to have community representative in this 858 communities and this 858 communities give birth to 62 wards where we are going to have 62 ward coordinators with their vice which makes them 124”.