By Yunusa Isa, Gombe

The North East Youths have been challenged to hold governments up to their responsibilities through proper monitoring and tracking of activities of elected and appointed political leaders.

The challenge was thrown by the Gombe State YouthGovTracka Focal Person Hadiya Usman during a town hall meeting in Gombe.

She said “As youths, we gather here to discuss issues of importance concerning our development, we are not fully being carried along in governance, though we form the majority in almost every society. Youths are the ones who always brought leaders into power, we decide the outcome of any election, not only election, but in all other socioeconomic spheres, we form 70% of the driving force”.

Hadiya said youths are the most powerful stakeholders that can shape positive future for upcoming generations, hence the meeting to sharpen their focus towards governments and leaders to keep them up to their responsibilities.

She said youths involvement and participation in governance promotes openness, accountability, transparency and result oriented governments.

Speaking on the forthcoming April 27 local government elections in the state, the state focal person encouraged youths to fully and actively partake in the elections, by supporting fresh bloods who are advocates of development from the grassroots.

Hadiya equally encouraged the youths to seek for information from ministries, departments and agencies to be able to track down and verify government activities, to ascertain whether they are in tandem with campaign promises.

She stressed that youths being the backbone of any development, YouthGovTracka will continue to advocate and push forward for youths inclusivity in politics and governance.

Speaking to the 100 participants of the town hall meeting from across the six North Eastern States, the Adamawa State Focal Person Riki Siman, said “YouthGovTracka trains youths on how best to engage in governance and how to track Governments budgets and activities, and whether appropriately executed or not”.

He said YouthGovTracka investigate and brought to fore, corruption practices of governments and government officials.

Riki said the program promotes the inclusivity of youth, women and people living with disability in governance, maintaining that “when our people are in position of authority, we find it easier to formulate and execute PWDs, women and youth friendly policies.

The meeting had in attendance youths across walks of life, to include students of higher institutions, civil society organizations, women groups, corps members, people living with disabilities amongst.

YouthGovTracka is a program being sponsored by Brain Builders Youths Development Initiative and supported by Youth Democracy Cohort and the European Union.