Osinbajo: “This is the best time to be a young Nigerian”
Speaking at the launch of a book on how politics works, written by Babafemi Ojudu and Alex James, the vice president said that a mixture of youth and experience will solve some of Nigeria’s endemic problems or challenges.
“We must not give up and we must not look back. Today’s challenges are for those of us who are here and alive today, and they are meant to be solved by young people, and as i always say, there is no better time to be alive This is the best time to be young This is the best time in Nigeria to be young.
“Those who are young today have the best possible opportunity. In my day, when I was a teacher, if I had to do research to write an article, it would take me weeks. Today if I just take my iPad I can get in any library anywhere in the world and get all the information and write my article in hours instead of weeks, months or years.
“It was Fareed Zakaria, who said that our smartphone that we carry today has a computing power a hundred times that of the Apollo space rocket that took men to the moon.
“Our generational challenges have the generational solutions, let’s stop complaining, just face the problems and solve them. Whether we’re in government or planning to do it, however we want to do it, let’s just get down to the table and fix the problem. problem,” Osinbajo said.
He adds that he has surrounded himself with young people for the presidency.
“I have so many bright young people working with me and they are not intimidated (I have to tell you) by someone older than them.
“So the youngest person who worked with me was only 22, she had just graduated from college and was very bright, and very assertive, she knew her business.
“And Ahmad who is 37 is a special adviser for infrastructure, I have a special adviser for political affairs who is 60, or the economic adviser, Ambassador Dipeolu who is over 60.
“There are so many young people, Balkisu Saidu who is SSA Legal, she has an interesting story – she got married at the age of 13, had her first child at the age of 14. Thanks to everything this, her mother did Of course, she was educated and she is a professor today (associate professor of law) and she is still under 40 years old, with her three grown children.
“The truth is, she comes to work with a lot of experience that no one else has. She comes to work with a variety of ideas. There’s Tola Johnson, (presidential assistant on MPMES) and many of those who are here.
“I think we need to focus a little more on what people bring to the table. I am not making a commitment on the basis of age. I first met Rauf Aregbesola when we were on the Lagos State Transition Committee in 1999, he was barely 42 years old and I was about the same age.
“He was campaign manager for Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the time, he was 42 years old but he led the whole campaign at the time, but he’s been there ever since. I had been an advisor to the Attorney General of the Federation when I was 31 years old. , so I had some experience in this area “, he says.
Osinbajo adds that the type of politics he prefers is liberal, free enterprise, democracy, individual freedom. The kind of politics that means there can be no discrimination on the basis of age, sex or political beliefs.