Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chieftain and former Delta State gubernatorial aspirant, Chief Sunny Onuesoke has argued that value and attitude should be the criteria for electing our new leaders and not whether the candidate is young or old.

Onuesoke who gave the advice during a virtual leadership forum said Nigerians would be making a great mistake by electing a leader just because he is young or old without considering if he possessed the value or attitude to lead the people.

Querying if Nigeria needed youth as leaders to have a better country, Onuesoke recalled that our current leaders started leading as youths.

According to him, “we don’t need the youths, what we need is a change of mindset and attitude from young and old. Else, it’s the same story. Youths have always been in power. They became old in power”.

Stressing that the key political actors of both pre and post-independence era were all young people, the PDP Chieftain pointed out that it would not be wrong to conclude that the youth of that time, mismanaged the destiny of Nigerians which providence placed in their hands.

He recalled that the prominent leaders at that time were either in their thirties or early forties and asked what legacy was handed down by them.

He stated that Nigeria’s political experience has shown that most states which have had young men as governors have usually witnessed needless political crises which sometimes resulted in some politically-motivated killings because they were ignorant, intolerant and tyrannical.

“Tolerance and patience are qualities that come with the maturity of both the mind and age. The older and the more experienced one is, the more these attributes would be expected of him. I wonder how many youths in leadership position would brook attacks and vitriolic criticisms that are now flooding social media against this administration.

It is even a known fact that one of those young men who copiously used the same platform to attack previous governments, on becoming a lawmaker had advocated its censorship,” he stated.