It was very interesting watching President Muhammadu Buhari last Thursday as he signed into law the ‘Not too young to run bill’. He was surrounded by some handpicked youths whose appearances suggest they are not in the band of the ‘lazy youths’ the President talked about the other time.
The youths looked well fed and fine arrayed, suggesting that they are from rich and well- connected homes.
Last Tuesday during his nationwide Democracy Day broadcast, President Buhari had promised to sign the bill. The bill was passed by the National Assembly last year to alter Sections 65, 106, 131, 177 of the constitution. It was to reduce the age qualification for president from 40 to 30; governor from 35 to 30; senator from 35 to 30; House of Representatives membership from 30 to 25 and State House of Assembly membership from 30 to 25.
Controversy has since trailed the hasty assent to the bill when other bills that would better impact the country are not even being considered. The speed at which the President assented to the bill and the timing have set off many insinuations. While some believe it was aimed at sand-papering a controversial statement he made recently that Nigerian youths were a bunch of idle illiterates which earned him some bashing from the youth, some other analysts say it is all about 2019.
They believe that the President must have signed the bill into law just to woo the youth to vote for him.
“This is pure politics. President Buhari knows that his administration is not that popular because of poor performance. He thinks that assenting to the bill could sway youth’s perception and eventually get them to vote for his return in 2017. This is the time all manner of bills can be signed into law.
“In this part of the world laws don’t mean anything to those in government, after all we hear how government refuses to submit itself to the rule of law and court judgments,” Okaro Jibril, a member of the Civil Society Organisation (CSO), said. They see such exercise as meaning almost nothing to them. In the case of the ‘NotTooToungToRun’ law, the President knows that it does not concern him after all he would be leaving the stage in some years to come assuming he wins in 2019,” said.
At the occasion, he told the youth not to contest against him, but to wait till 2023.
One major concern about the new law is that the targeted youths are mostly the children and wards of old brigade politicians. Such youths have since been corrupted by their parents who had presided over power for a long time. So, with such youths the evil days are not over for Nigeria.
