Ahead of the 2023 general elections, younger Nigerians have been agitating for leadership positions. PAUL OKAH speaks with a cross-section of Nigerians on the definition of a youth and their chances of the youth clinching power.
Youth should organise themselves, establish a political party
In discussing youth involvement in politics, it is important to understand the concept and definition of a youth. In the past, we have witnessed situations when people aged 60 years occupied a position made for a youth. The 2019 Nigeria’s National Youth Policy defined youth as young people within the ages of 18 and 35. In the same vein, the African Youth Charter and ECOWAS define youth as those within the ages of 15 and 35. Therefore, based on the foregoing contextual definitions, it is correct to treat youth as 18 and 35 years of age.
Nigeria’s youth population accounts for over half of the projected national population of over 200 million people, the largest youth population in the world. Unfortunately, despite this huge population, Nigerian youth have not leveraged its population strength to win elections, or determine who wins elections or negotiates for appointment positions. This is particularly worrying as they represent over 60% of registered voters in Nigeria. Political participation begins mainly through membership in political parties and many young Nigerians are not registered as members of political parties.
Without a doubt, the commercialisation of politics in Nigeria has left the political selection process to the discretion of power dealers and god fathers. They exercise near absolute control over the mechanisms and processes of political parties. Nevertheless, the youth can organize themselves, establish a political party and offer nomination and office forms free of charge to qualified members to stand for positions.
Besides the commercialisation of politics, poverty and unemployment among young people disadvantage them from being fundamentally focused on participating in politics as players. In addition, many young people lack adequate social resources for education, health and decent housing. Similarly, many young people are not sufficiently educated to have the skills that make them employable, and others are routinely transferred from tertiary institutions to non-existent labour markets.
The lack of access to opportunities to support themselves and those who depend on them gives them the opportunity to enjoy short-term benefits instead of participating in political life. This, in turn, provides an opportunity and a basis for the political elite to consider youth as political enforcers through thuggery, purveyors of violence and other nefarious purposes.
I encourage young people to use the same zeal and organisation as deployed at the #EndSARS event to organise change in Nigeria through resilient political involvement. They have the population, the skills and the resources to mobilise the resources and the manpower to make the change they need.
…Dr. Chiwuike Uba, Amaka Chiwuike- Uba Foundation (ACUF)
Youth their own problem
Popularly accepted answers on who a youth is should be a young man below 40, unmarried, free from the encumbrances of marriage, having strength to carry out certain functions that require physical energy and a bridge between the older generation and the young. However, the above doesn’t apply in politics as even some people above 40 and 50 years claim to be youths and always vie for positions meant for youths.
The greatest problem in Nigeria is that youths don’t take active interest in politics by vying for elective positions. Many of them are content to serve as thugs to politicians for stipends. It is not supposed to be so. Youths make up more than 60 per cent of the population. They have the power and voting strength to effect changes through the ballot box.
With your PVC as a youth, you can elect the best politicians to represent you in different political positions; that is if you don’t want to contest yourself. However, it is discouraging to see that many of the youth even set up football posts on the road on the day of election. Many would like to sleep and do other things on Election Day, but turn round to blame politicians when the wrong people are voted into power.
It is not enough to complain and lament about negative developments in the country without making any effort to change it. We got to where we are today as a country by the collective choice we made to elect the wrong people in politics. We said that the PDP government was corrupt and incapable of curbing insecurity, but where are we now as a country under APC? Has anything improved under this administration? Killings are happening on a daily basis in different starts, with security operatives paying the ultimate price.
However, if we continue lamenting, without taking action, nothing will change. The future is for the youth to take over. There is nothing wrong with Nigeria that cannot be fixed when the youth decide that enough is enough and that power must change hands. It is not about camping on social media to insult the government in the name of criticism, but lacking knowledge of real issues at hand.
Hopefully, in the coming days, we will see more youths buy forms of different political parties to contest for different elective positions, even for the presidency. We are long overdue for youth leadership as the old seem out of ideas and should give way for the young to take over and ensure proper administration of the country.
…Aisha Bello, entrepreneur
Old men will continue frustrating youth
There is no acceptable definition to the question of who a youth is, though the United Nations defines youth as persons between the ages of 15 and 24, with all UN statistics based on this range. The same definition can never be applied in Nigeria as even those in the aforementioned bracket are sometimes still in secondary schools, while some schools of thought even claim that someone above 40 is still a youth.
Having said that, youth involvement in politics is always a source of concern in Nigeria as power is never given but taken. The contest for the youth to take over government from the old generation of politicians didn’t start today and I don’t see it ending without the older generation of politicians fighting tooth and nail to continue in power. The Nigerian system has made it so that the generation of politicians will continue frustrating the youth, especially those interested in political positions.
The youths have so much been economically disenfranchised that they’re best as thugs, servants and ‘yes men’ to politicians. For a start, when a child is born into a poor family, he starts struggling with his parents on how to survive in Nigeria. He attends public schools and faces different strikes by teachers. At the University or tertiary institution, he is made to spend more years than necessary as a result of ASUP or ASUU strikes that always disrupt academic activities.
After managing to graduate from school, the supposed youth is made to face the labour market, where he will be forced to reduce his age to fit into job descriptions, starting with NYSC. Therefore, while his mates abroad are already established in life, the average Nigerian youth spends his youthful age trying to find his feet in the country and looking for jobs just to feed himself and extended family members.
Is that the person that will be taking interest in politics? The problem is not the youth but the system we find ourselves in Nigeria. It is so discouraging that the youth have been made to be perpetually dependent on the decisions made by the older generation. On the other hand, the older generations are perpetually in power and will continue to seek ways to remain in power, at the detriment of the youth.
…Isarel Adebayo, civil servant
Power’s got by active participation
There is no time for youth to take an active interest in politics. The different political parties dominating the political space will never sit still and watch the youth displace them from what they have come to regard as their birthright.
Power is gotten by struggle and active participation in politics, not by wishful thinking. When I watch political developments in the country, I sincerely believe that the youth are not ready to assume their roles as leaders of tomorrow. A visit to social media will tell you all that you need to know as those who are supposed to take over from the old generation pay more attention to insulting themselves.
For instance, on a daily basis, we read news of politicians declaring to contest for different political countries in different states, but how many of them are youth? Out of 100 people, you will see only five people that are youth, but they are still sponsored by the old generation and even have no interest in the election, besides being used against serious contenders.
Also, the amounts that political parties fix for their forms are rather exorbitant and not youth-friendly. The major opposition party, the PDP, fixed its price for the presidential form at N40m. Which youth has N40m to pay for forms alone, when there is still a campaign to execute and the candidates not even sure of making it to the primaries, let alone winning the election.
In a nutshell, we have a long way to go in this country if the youth are really determined to take over power from the older generation. This can be done through restrategising, with political parties playing their own roles of ensuring that the forms are made affordable for the youth. Anything other than that will be a waste of time.
…Monday Okon, teacher
