The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Thursday, bestowed an award of excellence on the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Prince Adewole Adebayo, as its ‘Politician of the Year’.
The country’s apex student body recognized the renowned legal practitioner at an event to mark its 40th anniversary at the National Universities Commission (NUC) Hall in Abuja.
Adebayo received the award in the company of former Minister of Youth and Sports, Hon. Solomon Dalung, ex-federal lawmaker, Senator Ugochukwu Uba, Pastor Ade Alabi, and Chief Godwin Osigbeme.
In his goodwill message, the SDP flagbearer congratulated the student body for surviving the socio-economic brutalities of the 80s, 90s and 2000s.
He said that NANS is a serious recruitment body that will produce all kinds of leadership.
Thus, he added that NANS must be taken seriously and centered when discussing issues of national interest in Nigeria.
“NANS must maintain a coordinated position on every national issue, else this recruitment body will incur three problems that cannot be cured. The youth must go back to the days of involvement with both foreign and national affairs,” he warned.
Adebayo added that “NANS must have a common position on national issues.
“The Nigerian youth who do not have a NANS-like organization to protect their interests will further suffer as a result of unarticulated interests. The perception that a government is full of people thinking about the welfare of youths being false – because today’s leaders are not thinking about welfare at all.
“We should not have a country where the leaders who are there now have no solution, and the leaders who are coming tomorrow are not thinking” said Adebayo. He advised that the entire student body should be more reflective, adding that today is not the time for any form of celebration or recognition to anybody. He pinpointed that a leadership that cannot open a university has no member capable of receiving any award from students.
“You cannot be awarding strike, broken curriculum, underfunded universities and stolen money. If we are giving politicians awards now that the economy is down, what are we going to give them when universities have computers, when they design curriculums correctly, and build universities where everyone has a decent hostel?
“The most important segment of a country is the youth that must be radical. The youth must be visionary and the youth must be idealistic. They must not take excuses because Nigeria needs an angry NANS that ask questions, that challenges authority because nobody else is doing it. If you don’t do it, the country is gone.”
