8 Out Of 12 Plateau Youth Council Executives Insist Their Tenure Ends 22nd May, 2020

Yakubu Busari

Eight members out of the Twelve Executives of the Plateau Youth Council have insisted that their tenure of office expired end tomorrow 22nd May, 2020.

In a press conference held at the Dadin Kowa youth center on Thursday  ,they eight members  told journalists that  following  the constitution of the PYC there is no provision for care taker committee or any kangaroo interim committee

They expressed sadness with the continued dribbling of the youth by Dr Jemchang Fabong who is claiming and hiding under the COVID-19 to elongate his tenure.

See Full Statement Below::

TEXT OF A PRESS CONFERENCE BY PLATEAU STATE YOUTH COUNCIL EXCO AT AZI NYAKO YOUTH CENTER DADIN KOWA JOS, TODAY 21ST MAY 2020

 

Gentlemen of the Press, you will recall that on 22nd of May 2017. we were inaugurated as Exco of Plateau State Youth Council to serve for a Tenure of three calendar years as stipulated in Article VIII (a) of the Constitution of the Plateau State Youth Council. In the light of this, we wish to appreciate God Almighty for keeping us alive to this day less than 23 hours to the stipulated three years.

Still on the scroll of our benediction, we wish to express our appreciation to His Excellency Rt Hon. Simon Bako Lalong the Executive Governor of Plateau State and Chairman Northern Governors Forum for his tremendous support given to the Council, We also salute the government for the measures taking in combating the Covid 19 pandemic that has ravaged the whole world, not forgetting the commitment of our frontline health workers in this fight, indeed Plateau is blessed.

We are grateful to the entire Youths of Plateau and past Leaders/Veterans of the Plateau State Youth Council for their unalloyed support and cooperation throughout our tenure, we reiterate our commitment to the oath to serve the Youth Council to the best of our abilities. As humans, we believe that we may  have fail in one way or the other either through our actions or inactions. Thus, we salute your patience and wish that you will extend same to the next Exco.

Fellow Plateau Youths. Today, this press conference became necessary because we are confronted with a challenge that was not envisage in the Constitution of the PYC (transition amidst Covid 19), this challenge have generated a lot of mixed reactions in the last few days especially after the resolution of the “Expanded Exco Meeting” in which we refused to attain for lack of constitutional backing:

For the records, we agree with all the concerns raised in the said resolution as necessitated by the current situation but we disagree and dissociate ourselves from “Maintaining Status Quo till the end of Covid 19” Our concerns are bothered on the fact that although we are confronted with the global pandemic (Covid 19) there is no moral justification for tenure extension as we still have the option of setting up an Electoral Committee to begin election planning while we wait for final ease of lockdown to conduct elections.

Ladies and gentlemen, the failure of the CWC to have set up Electoral Committee by March 2020, one month to elections is a breach of Article 5 (ext 3b) which already was failure on their part as leaders. Thus, Plateau Youths should not be made to pay for the inactions, rather the meeting should have exhausted every available alternative before invoking the doctrine of necessity.

Again, we had made several efforts to ensure that the CWC did the right thing to avert this situation by serving the Speaker with a memo titled REQUEST FOR EXTRA-ORDINARY CWC MEETING on 17TH January 2020 and a reminder on 16th March 2020 to set up Electoral Committee and address other issues in the Council, taking our powers from Article IX 4(b) (find attached copies). Despite this However, we were flagrantly ignored.

OUR POSITION

1. That we had served for a complete 2 years 11 months before the Covid 19 lockdown therefore, we have no reason to use COVID 19 as an excuse      not to have set electoral committee to conduct election. Also, nobody knows when Covid 19 will end, therefore, we must use every available means                 to ensure the right thing is done.
2. That the leadership of the CWC which have not call for its sitting for a period of 2 years has shown total disregard to the Constitution of the Youth           Council hence proved not to be ready to do the right thing even in the next                 one year.
3. That If the Leadership of the CWC can attend a meeting with the LG Chairmen and Voluntary Youth Organizations to agree on tenure extension,      they can as well schedule a CWC meeting under social distancing to                 constitute Electoral Committee which is the constitutional expectation, this        to ensure that we uphold the Constitution of the Youth Council and protect    its integrity even amidst the present global challenges.