National Youth Development Fund: Group urges 10th NASS to prioritize Bill
The incoming tenth National Assembly has been urged to prioritise the speedy passage of the National Youth Development Fund Bill to provide a legal framework for the implementation of the National Youth Policy.
This was contained in a communique issued on Thursday at the end of a dialogue tagged; Promoting Open Parliament for upscaling legislative accountability project, POPULA, with the theme ‘setting the agenda for youth inclusion in parliament’ held in Abuja.
POPULA is a project organised by some Civil Society Organisations under the aegis of Network of Parliamentary Monitoring Organisation (PMOs)
The organisation also wants States that are yet to adopt and implementation the National Youth Policy to do so without delay.
At the dialogue, the representative of the OrderPaper Advocacy Initiative, the Secretariat for the network, Temidayo Taiwo-Sidiq underscored the importance of the role of the legislature in governance; being the closest to the people.
Taiwo-Sidiq said parliamentary activities and operations were sometimes shrouded in secrecy and ambiguities which had led to mistrust and lack of confidence in their representation.
He stressed the need for legislators to change the narrative for the good of the nation’s democracy.
The member representing Jos South/Jos East Federal Constituency of Plateau State, Dachung Musa – Bagos,
said citizens should set the right agenda for legislators rather than engaging in speculation.
In a paper presentation on the 10th Assembly and youth inclusion, Kingsley Atang of the Youth Alive Foundation called for the active involvement of young people in the political process to ensure that their perspectives and concerns are taken into consideration.
The POPULA project is expected to last for eight months.
