Jude Feranmi left Pharmacy school after 4 years to study Philosophy. He says he found the need to understand and study political philosophy in preparation for what he sees as a life of service. A three-time parliamentarian at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Student’s Union and one-time Public Relations Officer of the Union, he is now at 25, the youngest National Youth Leader of a political party in Nigeria. In this exclusive interview with SIGNAL online newspaper’s THE INFLUENCERS Series, Feranmi, the National Youth Leader of KOWA Party talks about youth in politics, the emergence of Emmanuel Macron in France, why Nigerian youths have been unable to forge a common front amongst other issues.

Excerpts;

How did you get involved in politics?

Let me first say thank you to SIGNAL for the opportunity to share with your audience. It’s one of the most important part of getting our message to the people. I joined partisan politics immediately I left university, first as a member of the party, then as an organiser and now a National Leader. I was a Student Union Leader in OAU while in school and had always abhorred the sentiment that the problems we faced as student union leaders were problems that could not be solved at the level of the university and had to be tackled from source. I served as parliamentarian three times and PRO once before I left the campus. I have since been involved in birthing a new political order since then.

You have risen so quickly to become the National Youth Leader of KOWA Party. How did it happen?

When I joined as a member of the party, I was not just a passive member. Picking KOWA PARTY was also not just a shallow decision for me. I had studied majority of the political parties in Nigeria, internal party democracy, youth inclusiveness and created a sort of index for the feasibility of making our country a better place. KOWA PARTY stood out for me as not just youth inclusive but also as consisting of a different crop of politicians who were actually interested in seeing a different Nigeria. Once I joined, I started organising my friends and colleagues and reaching out across the country to get young people to also join the party. There were a few ideas I had about what the party could do to encourage more young people. I put forward those ideas and once I got approval to execute them, things began to gel. The freedom to operate within the constituency of youth paved way for a lot of ideas that we needed to bring in young people. The organising for young people that I engaged in for the party later on brought me forward to contest as the National Youth Leader of the party in the 2016 National Convention where I was elected. Since then, we have had many more young Nigerians join our party to add value and engage the system.

What is the position of KOWA Party on the Not Too Young to Run Bill?

As the National Youth Leader of the party, I can categorically say that KOWA PARTY fully supports the Not Too Young To Run Bill. The leaders of our party have also publicly thrown their backs behind this bill including Professor Sonaiya, our presidential candidate in the 2015 elections. We also do not just support the bill, it is what we practice. Our youth leaders both at the national level and at the state level are actually youths. Also, much more than the position of the youth leaders, we have youths occupying other positions. On our National Executive Committee for example, 50% of the membership as it is currently constituted are Nigerians below 40 years old. This is why everyone will tell you that KOWA PARTY is the most youth inclusive party in Nigeria.

What do you think is the major reason Nigerian youths have been unable to organize themselves into a powerful and united bloc of influencers?

We have majorly been blinded by the seeming need for unity amidst the young influencers in Nigeria and that has been the bane of our coming together. We assume that the unity that we need also means agreement on every major issue. So we disagree so much on various issues to the extent that we allow our disagreements to impede working together on the other issues we agree on. YIAGA is a good example of an organization that has been able to appropriate what this unity could look like. The advocacy around the #NotTooYoungToRun Bill has seen people on various divides support a singular issue. If we will be calm enough to look deeply and put asides our disagreements, we would find many more issues we agree on and can then work together for our own good as a demography. The core of our disagreements most times are tied around interests, persons and patronage. This, for some is unfortunate. However, it is almost impossible to have young individuals who are influential politically who will not have their own stance on interests and persons. What we need to do is eradicate that slander that we need to agree 100% before we can work together on the issues that bind us together as a demography.

Read FULL interview here - http://www.signalng.com/interview-youth-party-nigeria-not-feasible-feranmi-judeferanmi-theinfluencersng/