From Oredo East's Streets To The Chamber, A Promise To Finally Listen

Somewhere in Oredo East tonight, a young person is sitting in the dark because the light went out again, while others hold a certificate in one hand and a dream in their chest, with nobody calling them back, and some are counting the last naira in their pocket and still choosing to hope. I have seen that hope up close, and it is the most precious thing our community owns, which is why it deserves leaders who will protect it.

I stand before you as the APC candidate for the Edo State House of Assembly, Oredo East Constituency, and I do not come with a speech about tomorrow but with a promise about today. I know what it feels like to stand outside a room where your future is being decided, to carry ideas and a heart for your people, and to be told to wait, and our young people have waited long enough.

Youthful representation is not about age but about understanding, because the graduate who has walked from office to office with a folded CV knows what unemployment does to the spirit, and the young trader in Benin City who has watched a small business collapse under high costs and missing support knows what the economy feels like at street level. When people who have lived these struggles sit in the chamber, laws stop being paper and start becoming relief.

For too long, our young people have been clapped for at rallies and forgotten after elections, and we have been called leaders of tomorrow so often that tomorrow has started to sound like a postponement. Every young person who has ever felt invisible deserves to hear this clearly, you are not a campaign decoration, you are the heartbeat of this constituency.

I also want to say, with deep respect, that I am not asking anyone to step aside, for our fathers, mothers and elders carry the wisdom that built the ground we stand on, and I want their guidance beside me and not behind me. When the elder who has walked far and the young person who is ready to run sit at the same table, a community becomes unstoppable.

My commitment to Oredo East rests on four promises, good representation, quality legislation, sustainable development and people centred service, and behind every one of them is a face, a mother who wants her son to find work, a father who wants a safe road for his daughter, a student who wants a school that believes in her, and a young creative who needs one chance to turn talent into a living. Our message is simple, people first, progress always.

To my fellow young people, I speak as a brother, for a seat at the table is not a trophy but a trust, and trust is earned by character. We must be honest when no one is watching, humble when we are applauded, and faithful to the people who believed in us, because when one of us fails, doubt falls on all of us, and when one of us succeeds, a door opens for the next.

To parents, community leaders, traditional institutions and political parties, I make a heartfelt appeal to make room, to give young people real roles and not decorative ones, to mentor us without controlling us, and to listen to us even when our questions are uncomfortable, because the young person who challenges you today is the one who will carry your legacy tomorrow. And to the young man selling recharge cards while studying for his next exam, the young woman organising her neighbours for a cleaner street, and the corps member teaching in a distant village, your quiet effort is already leadership, and your struggle is proof of strength, not weakness.

I dream of an Oredo East where no talented child must leave home to be valued, where no capable voice is silenced for being young, and where every family can say that they were seen, they were heard and they were served. A stronger Oredo East and a brighter future begin when we choose to make space for those who have waited so long, because the leaders of today are here, and we will walk together.

By Asiwaju Adekunle Saheed