By Chinoyi Chipulu
Citizens First national youth chairperson Maxwell Chongu has mourned that youths are just used as political tools for violence instead of using their energy and skills to better the community.
Speaking on Wednesday night when he featured on Crown Television program dubbed HardBall, Chongu said youths should be moulded into leaders that the current leaders would love to see in future.
“Youths are just used and abandoned, we have seen complaints, even now coming from youths from the ruling party, the same complaints that were coming from Patriotic Front youths and other parties. And after sitting and reflecting, I have visited so many political parties and I have noticed that youths are neglected,” he said.
He said youths were only regarded as tools of political violence because there was no political will in the leaders to allow young people to actively engage young people.
“Most leaders are afraid to engage young people because they are scared of their positions and fail to groom young people. We have people in Parliament who are supposed to be at their farms with people that are supposed to be their grandchildren,” said Chongu
And Chongu said political alliances fail to work in the country because most leaders fail to manage their political ambitions.
He said most political players disregarded rules for the alliances, saying they tried to use political alliances as a platform for their unmitigated political ambitions.
“Most alliances fail to work in Zambia because people fail to manage their political ambitions. For a good leader, you need to be calm at the face of the storm. Leaders are being told a lot of things by their followers and they make decisions based on what they hear from their followers not looking at the bigger picture in terms of what Zambians want,” he said.
Chongu said an alliance could work when people united and worked together to achieve a common goal.
