DR. JEMILA BIO IBRAHIM SHOULD BE INFORMED THAT TOWN HALL MEETING IS A WEIRD APPROACH IN A PERIOD OF YOUTH RESTIVENESS
Being text of press statement by the Concerned Youth Alliance for Tinubu (COYAT) dated this 5th August, 2024
The attention of our noble group has just been drawn to a planned town hall meeting being proposed by the Hon. Minister of Youth Development, Dr. Jemila Bio-Ibrahim.
As a youth group passionate about the success and legacy of our President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it gives us great joy that the current issue of protest in some parts of the country has finally woken up sleeping Ministers like Dr. Jemila from their slumber.
However, being youthful gives one a creative mind, the ability to think outside the box, and to do things differently. Sadly, we do not believe the town hall meeting being planned by Dr. Jemila shows in any way that she understands the demography over which she was appointed a Minister.
Perhaps, town hall as a medium of youth engagement could have worked 4 or 3 months ago when there was no restiveness of any kind. Even though it would also have achieved the objective of packing agreeable people in a hall and speaking to the converted, it would have at least suggested that the Youth Minister, notorious for her poor human relation, is at least ready to engage with the youth at last.
However, this weird approach of convening a town hall meeting at this time when protests are springing up across the country reveals that Dr. Jemila is still fixated on using the same approach that would probably work for other ministers with different portfolios, but definitely not a youth Minister.
During this time, what Dr. Jemila Bio Ibrahim needs to do is to engage directly with the youth, both online and offline. She needs to open up her X account so that she can be engaged by the youth who dominate the social media. She also needs to be out there speaking to the youth, explaining what is being done, pleading for calm, and reemphasizing the promise of Mr. President to make life better.
Before now, Dr. Jemila finds it difficult to engage with youth who approach her, either in her office or at any public fora. If she hadn’t been talking to them before now, she should have reasoned that she has no justification to seek to engage with them now. Hence, she chose the easy way out by arranging a controlled event like a town hall where she will have the opportunity to select the faces she wanted to see.
I think it was the second day of the protest or thereabouts that our attention was drawn to her junior colleague, the Minister of State, Ayodele engaging with a group of protesters somewhere in Abuja. If Dr. Jemila cannot do that, she should at least visit locations with large concentration of youth to engage and talk to them directly.
While we understand that the planned town hall meeting is scheduled to hold in the South West Zone, we would like to use this medium to warn Dr. Jemila to not bring her town meeting to anywhere in the North. If she cannot engage with us in places where majority of us can have the opportunity to speak to her, she should not insult us with the selection of her preferred faces to attend any town hall meeting on our behalf.
We also have it on good authority that the Minister has collected over 2 billion naira on the excuse that she wants to engage youth in order to stop the protests.
On our own, the only engagement we want with Dr. Jemila is one that is open, free and not restricted. We want her to speak to us on the streets and other places we converge as youth. She should meet us where we congregate to get diverse and frank opinions. We do not want an ‘arrangee gathering’ tagged as town hall. Any attempt to ignore this warning and hold any town hall meeting anywhere in the North would be met with stiff resistance. A word is enough for the wise.
Signed:
Comrade Jameel Mohammed Mashi (Joburg)
For and On Behalf of COYAT