 Welcome to The Advocate on Plus TV Africa, your reminder that important conversations are among the necessary tools for a senior society. If we're to make progress in the 2023 elections, my idea is that we need a strategy and that is what I'm pointing out today. Ruth is talking on voter apathy in our elections and Elijah on the other hand speaks on the danger of a leadership without diversity. Sit back. After this break, we'll be here to dissect it all to stay with us. We need an actual strategy. There are a couple of events happening this year that would generate a lot of attention. First is the UEFA Champions League. We have the World Cup and of course the elections build up. You can already tell which one directly affects us or at least for the next four years. The election campaigns are beginning to gradually build up. We hope to see more action from June this year. We've flugged on the issue around how we need to kick out the old folks and get in young people. These things are easier said than done. If not, we could have succeeded in kicking them out a long time ago. I personally believe that it's not just about kicking out the old folks. We need an actual strategy of penetration. I hear a lot of falls around Nigeria needing young precedent. I have thought deeply around this and have come to personally deduce that we need a sound precedent and not necessarily a youth as a precedent. Being young is not a factor of production and it's definitely not a strategy. Let us remember that history does exist as patterns and triggers for us to appropriately plot a better future. We can't just erase history. We need it as a guide towards creating the kind of leadership and governance that we seek. People fought for Nigeria with their lives even before we had social media. All I'm saying is we need an actual strategy. If we're going to make any significant progress in the common elections that is. So I'm asking what is our strategy? Who are you asking these questions? I'm asking the young people. What has started you? I thought you were asking everybody. Beyond all the noise on social media, kicking out the old folks and everything. You've probably seen that a lot in recent times. We don't need the old hacks coming back again and contesting for power. But really, and it's almost like the young people that came out the last time, what was really the traction that we got with that? I mean the Feladro to the Mogulu and all of that. So what's the strategy really? To be honest, my thoughts around this topic is the fact that for us, there's still that the young people themselves, and it's a personal opinion, I might be wrong, but the young people themselves are not completely ready. I think I've always said this everywhere I go. They're really not ready to take on this leadership role. There's the regular social media banter that, oh, we need young people. There's the regular every time they go, we need young people. But the question is, are the young people ready to take on this role? What I've come to realize is that leadership requires some level of experience. That's right. Whether it's corporate leadership or political leadership. And Nigeria being a peculiar nation that it is, and having gone through many years of fruitlessness and so many years of bad leadership or poor leadership, we need, if young people want to change the nation and create a new precedent for us, it means that we need to be prepared. So we have to then ask ourselves, when we finished 2019 elections, that was the cry. But then everybody went back to sleep. When we did the, what do you call it, 2020... The end source movement, yeah. Ends us protest. That was the cry. And then we all went back to sleep. 2021 came. Nothing significant really happened. And it's gone. And it's gone. And now we are now towards an election. The older folks already have planned out elections. Election for them is a job. Is a cost. Is a cost. So they take their time. Once an election is ending, they're already thinking of for the next election. And which is why we see what we see across board. But the fact is that they plan, they prepare. But for us, we are not, we just talk about it. And it's really, you can see it across the lives of many young people generally. So I guess it's just a general thing. That's what I like to chime in. There's this thing around when it's close to, I mean, it's a young, exorbitant energy. I don't know when it's close to something where we begin to make a lot of noise. And we don't really necessarily, I mean, when you think about even the Nation's Corp, who was talking about that until recently. So it's almost like we waited for another four years to start making a lot of noise. What would you say around that strategy of waiting till when it's close to the time, and then we'll start shouting, we need this. And then there's no actual, and you talked about living the moment at some point in the show. Yes, the PDM. Anyway, Victor, actually, I'm somehow in tandem with your ideology that it's not all about being young or old. The question is, who is going to be the right person? Most progressive countries in the world, they don't even have young people leading them. They mostly have elderly people leading them. Now, my argument is, it's not wrong for young people to desire to be in leadership. But as Ruth said, many of us are not ready. Because if you call most young people, ask them, do you have some knowledge about the country? I have many parts of Nigeria I've even traveled to. Many of them grew up in one part, I want your politicals and they've not left their other life. But I understand that this problem is not about the young people. Sometimes it's systemic. Somehow the system, somehow systematically exonerates young people. So I will blame the system on one hand. I also blame the young people on the other hand. But what I'm going to say is that moving forward, the country, the government should be intentional about creating spaces for young people. Old politicians should allow, we're not saying they should leave. We're not kicking them out. I don't believe in kicking them out. But they should try to work with young people so that there will be like an inclusion of young people. Mentor some of these young people. And young people should give themselves to knowledge, wisdom, learning, development, mentorship, apprenticeship. Be patient. Why we focus on what is happening? Politicians, involving in politics should not be a career. But see, it should be like an act of service. If you want to build a career, first of all, build a career as a businessman or a professional as a young person. From there, you can transcend to the political scene and to serve your people, have the right values. So that's my thinking. Whether a young person or an old person or lose the country, it does not matter who lose the country, it does not matter. The question is, do you have the persons, everybody's interest as a, that's the most important thing. Okay, so it's important that we look at what we have done in time path that has not worked, right? I cannot say I have the strategy, but I can say for a fact that we need to look at what has not worked and begin to try new stuff, not just getting involved in politics, getting involved the right way. Ruth is next after the break, do stay with us.