Osinbajo said: “For seven years — after serving as Lagos Attorney-General — I was part of the party. I did not have a board appointment or anything, but I kept working for the party. I kept working for the party as a lawyer. Most of those cases, we were not paid a dime. But we went from place to place."
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has recounted how he worked tirelessly and for free when he newly joined politics years ago.
According to Laolu Akande, the vice-president's spokesman, Osinbajo said this while addressing young aspirants of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja.
He urged them to embrace commitment to the party and be ready to make sacrifices.
Narrating his younger days in politics, while speaking to the youth on Wednesday night, Osinbajo said he worked for years without getting any appointment.
He said: “As a young person, I belonged to several pressure groups. I graduated at the age of 21. And when I graduated, I began to participate in various pressure groups, human rights organisations, anti-corruption, civil society groups of every kind.
“When political parties started forming, we could not aspire, but we remained involved. My first involvement in government was when I was appointed as Attorney-General in Lagos State.”
Osinbajo who served as the Attorney General of Lagos state during Bola Tinubu’s tenure, said the position was his first major appointment.
Osinbajo said: “For seven years — after serving as Lagos Attorney-General — I was part of the party. I did not have a board appointment or anything, but I kept working for the party.
“I kept working for the party as a lawyer. Most of those cases, we were not paid a dime. But we went from place to place.
“Sometimes, we didn’t even have a place to stay when we went to court the next morning. So, there is a measure of paying the price, it depends on how serious or committed we are to some of the things we say we are committed to.
“We are in a place where we are the ones who can make the difference; nothing is going to change overnight, but we can make efforts to change the process.
“We can do a lot more, but it depends on our commitment. I like the idea of young people getting a quota in the party structure to run for office on some level, such as the state Houses of Assembly,” he added.
He advised the young aspirants to invest in building the party, contribute the the development of their community and the nation as a whole.