The Senior Special Assistant to Gov. Biodun Oyebanji on Research, Mr. Olufemi Owolabi, has urged members of the City Boy Movement to ensure that their campaign for inclusion translates into tangible participation and opportunities for young people at the grassroots.
Owolabi gave the advice while delivering a keynote address titled, “The Tortoise, the Birds and the Politics of Leaving No One Behind,” at the inauguration of the Ekiti Chapter of the City Boy Movement on Thursday in Ado-Ekiti.
The event, held at the NTS Event Centre and themed “Leaving No One Behind”, attracted government officials, members of the national and state leadership of the movement and youths from across the state.
Owolabi commended the State Director of the movement, Asiwaju Oluwafemi Kasali, for his efforts in building structures across the 16 local government areas and establishing a Youth House, describing it as a practical demonstration of inclusion.
Anchoring his address on two lines from the Ekiti State anthem, “Ohun àbájọ́rò kì í pé kún, Ohun àṣẹpọ̀ ni l’ẹ̀yẹ”, Owolabi said inclusion was ultimately about who was captured in the word “we”.
He illustrated the point with the folktale of the tortoise and the birds, in which the tortoise, after borrowing feathers from the birds to attend a feast in the sky, introduced himself as “All of you” and subsequently ate the food meant for everyone.
“The tortoise had taken a language of inclusion and turned it into an instrument of exclusion. He had made ‘all of you’ mean ‘me first’,” he said.
Owolabi said the lesson was relevant to politics, stressing that leaders could claim to promote inclusion while failing to give people meaningful opportunities to participate.
“We can say ‘all of us’ without actually meaning all of us. We can celebrate young people while asking them only to clap,” he said.
He said true inclusion must be experienced, citing the state government’s approval for the employment of 30 persons with disabilities and enforcement of the five per cent reservation for persons with disabilities in public service recruitment, alongside vocational training and start-up support.
Owolabi said youths should not be regarded merely as “leaders of tomorrow”, noting that they were already contributing to society as farmers, teachers, artisans, software developers, content creators and entrepreneurs.
“The better question is not: When will young people become the leaders of tomorrow? The better question is: Why are we still treating them as visitors in the politics of today?” he asked.
He also urged youths to participate actively in the government’s pre-budget stakeholder engagements and other civic processes, warning that failure to participate would allow others to determine priorities on their behalf.
Referencing Michael Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucracy, Owolabi said government became real to citizens not only in ministries and offices but at schools, health centres, markets and on farm roads.
He urged the City Boy Movement to remain active beyond election periods and become a platform for civic knowledge, leadership development and community development.
“Leaving no one behind is not only about young people. That would itself become another form of exclusion,” he said, adding that different communities and groups had different needs.
Owolabi called for a politics in which people could belong without losing their individual identities, urging the movement to ensure that the benefits of governance reached communities across the state.
“That, to me, is what leaving no one behind means. It should mean that when the feast arrives, we ask who has not eaten. And when we say ‘we’, we should be certain that we actually mean we,” he said.
