Ilaje youths back Jonathan to implement confab report

Youths from the Ilaje area of Ondo State have resolved to back the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan, saying his administration will bring about the needed development in the country.

The resolution was reached at the Ilaje youth summit tagged “The significance of the forthcoming general election and the future of Ilaje nation,” convened by the Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party in the state, Banji Okunomo, in Akure, on Monday.

The youths held that President Jonathan had achieved a lot in his first term and would deliver more if re- elected.

Okunomo, while addressing the youths, said the summit became imperative to the Ilaje nation to define the agenda of the Ilaje as it relates to the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference.

He said the Ilaje people could not afford to take the backseat in the overall political agenda of the Yoruba people.

Okunomo, who described the convocation of the National Conference as the best thing that had happened to the nation, said the implementation of the recommendations by President Jonathan would turn the country around.

He said, “This is a golden opportunity for the structural change that is necessary at this time and can only be achieved with a man who does not only believe in the recommendations of the confab but is also committed and determined to ensure its implementation during the first year of his second term in office.”

Meanwhile, the National Chairman of a pro-Jonathan group, Better Empowerment Support Team for Goodluck Second Mission, Mr. Sakal Lawal, has denied rumours of his defection to the All Progressives Congress, saying the report was meant to mislead his supporters.

In a statement on Monday in Akure, Lawal, who was the deputy governorship candidate of the PDP in the 2012 election in the state, said as a leader of a pro-Jonathan organisation, he remained “irrevocably committed to the re-election of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.”