Students
By Douglas Okoro
Abakaliki, July 30, 2018 (NAN) An Ebonyi-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Forum for Good Leadership in Ebonyi (FGLE), has charged students in tertiary institutions in the state to be politically active and resist politicians’ overtures.
The NGO’s Coordinator in the state, Mr Boniface Igwe, gave the charge during a meeting with a students’ group, Action Team for Good Governance, on Monday in Abakaliki.
He advised the students not to allow politicians to use them as thugs “for their selfish interest before, during and after the 2019 general elections in the state’’.
Igwe said that the meeting was part of the NGO’s strategies at mobilising Ebonyi electorate to actively participate in the 2019 elections.
According to him, students’ involvement in the electoral process is critical as they constitute the bulk percentage of the voting population.
He said that the group decided to interface with the students with a view to sensitising them and to enhance their capacity in mobilising their colleagues for active participation in the electoral processes.
Igwe urged them to register and collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) as well as deploy their ‘hot’ energies in ensuring that credible and God-fearing leaders were elected as representatives of the people.
He told the students to support the emergence of a governor that would turn around the political, economic and social fortunes of the state.
“Students are critical stakeholders in the political and electoral processes and powerful forces needed to enthrone sustainable positive change in any society.
“Our organization is committed to promoting and entrenching credible leadership through a free and fair election hence, we are working with progressive groups that share similar ideology with us.
“We are appealing to students to resist voter apathy, political violence and those factors that can truncate orderly, peaceful, free and fair elections in Ebonyi in 2019.
“We urge you to mobilize your colleagues and other voting public to go and register and collect their PVCs in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR),” he said.
The leader and spokesperson of the students’ group, Miss Ugonna Irem, said theirs was a political pressure group whose membership was drawn from the three campuses of Ebonyi State University (EBSU).
Irem said that the group was committed to promoting good governance in Ebonyi and pledged that students would no longer sit on the fence, but must make their voices to be heard and votes counted in 2019.
She assured that students would no longer be used as thugs by desperate politicians to achieve their selfish ambitions in the state.
She commended the Forum for the Reach-Out Initiative, saying that both groups would synergize to effectively mobilize Ebonyi electorate ahead of the elections.
“The group is made up of students from Ishieke, Presco and Cass campuses of EBSU and we have been meeting and mobilizing our fellow students to go and get registered in the ongoing voter registration.
“Students will no longer sit on the fence in election matters; we will henceforth be active participants and ensure that we vote during elections,” Irem said. (NAN)
ODO /KOO/OPI
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Edited by Kevin Okunzuwa and Olisa Ifeajika