National Youth Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Barrister Ibrahim Ismaeel has warned the party may be starting from the scratch with the absence of President Muhammadu Buhari on the ballot papers in 2023.
He also called on youths in the party to make themselves available because 2023 is going to be a battle for the young people.
He charged party members to start to prepare in earnest for the post-Buhari era while inaugurating members of the Planning Committee for the forthcoming National Youth Conference at the party National Secretariat in Abuja.
The member of the Caretaker Extra-Ordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) said: “I say it every time that the President Muhammadu Buhari always come to the table with ten million votes in every election he has participated in.
“But for the first time in twenty years, in 2023 President Buhari will not be on the ballot and because he will not be on the ballot; which means we have to go scarting for those ten million votes elsewhere.
“At best if the President is giving us some of his supporters, which he as a bonafide member of the party will do, the best we can look for is probably 50% of those 10million votes which means we have to go scarting for other five million votes elsewhere. Those five million votes are with the young people and women.”
The youth leader maintained in view of the strategic role the youth will be playing in 2023, young people in the party are going to place demand on the party for leadership position.
He charged members of youth wing of the party, whom he described as young progressives to be prepared to take leadership positions.
On the forthcoming National Youth Conference, he said the two-day talk shop is organised to harmonize ideas and chat the road map of what we expect “so that we can draw other young people into this movement and grow it as well and we can deliver the party and deliver the country both in 2023 and beyond.”
