I was encouraged to make this post here after earlier discussing same on Facebook by @turpsy and I thank him for that.

After the passage and signing into law of the #NotTooYoungToRun bill in #Nigeria, there have been many comments and positive vibes among the teeming young population. We have witnessed a plethora of new young dynamic faces pouring into the political arena declaring intention to run for political offices. From the state legislators to the highest political office in the land, we have seen young Nigerians in their 30s declaring intention for office which is a deviation from the norm.

These waves of declarations were majorly borne out of frustration with the current political class that have been re-cycling themselves in running the affairs of the country for the past couple of decades but yet without any significant progress that have made many declared #Nigeria as a failed nation.

Scene from a recent petrol tanker explosion in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, where citizens lost lives and properties in one of the many apparent examples of government failure

Even though I was an active campaigner of the #NotTooYoungToRun bill that enable participation of youths in elections, and given that I am a youth myself with experiences of what the youth are capable of, there is the need to sensitize ourselves so that we prevent running the nation into a seemingly dangerous pot-holes as we have often seen in the past. The current crops of leaders all started off as a youth.

Competence and capacity are far more important needed factors than age at this crucial period for our country

And there is no evidence that stated that age is a prerequisite of these factors. In fact, what we mostly have is prove of age not having anything to do with them.

As an example drawn from the ongoing #FIFA World cup, Uruguay's national team manager is 71 years Old. Below are some pictures of him at work

source71 years old Oscar Tabarez at his team's training sessions

He has now lead his team to the quarter final of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and his team has the best defence record so far

source

Argentina's Sampaoli on the other hand is 58 years old and has some of the game greatest stars in his team, including 5 times World footballer of the year, Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Angel Di Maria, Paulo Dybala, 3 times UEFA Champions league winner Javier Mascherano and others but he failed, struggling to get out of the group, lost the dressing room before eventually crashing out.

Also, a young Barrack Obama in 8 years as POTUS was unable to bring fellow young President Kim of North Korea to dialogue in office to resolve one of the biggest security threat to the existence of the globe in recent time but a Septuagenarian Trump was able to do that in less than 2 years in office. This failure was one of those Obama admitted he was not proud of in office.

Although If you are young and capable, it is better, as it provides opportunity for longer period of service delivery.

So going forward to the 2019 general elections in Nigeria, if you think the main factor to decide your choice is "age" and you leave the question of capacity and competence to the background or an afterthought and started shouting youths and age, ask yourself how the Student Union Governments across Nigerian tertiary institutions spent millions of naira they always collude with the "old generation" in their lecturers or school administrators to force you to pay while in the university.

If you are being honest with yourself, therein lies the answer to the character of the loots....sorry, yoots.

That tells you that leadership, governance, competence or capacity to get something done is not solely about age. Getting Nigeria working again is not only about age. We need something more.

Thank you for reading. Kindly comment, upvote and resteem