Dearth of political empowerment for Nigerian youths

“I am very happy to be here. Let me remind you that this place – Shrine is a music place as well as politics, which is needed to change the society. So, I will say to the youths, politics is important, be involved”

 – French President, Emmanuel Macron, at Afrika Shrine, Lagos on Tuesday, July 3, 2018.

It is 220 days to the next general elections taking place in 2019. Preparations are on by different stakeholders to make the exercise credible, peaceful and successful. As happened on Monday, July 9, political parties are already forming working alliances with the Peoples Democratic Party leading the pack by signing a Memorandum of Understanding with 38 other political parties and associations. The Independent National Electoral Commission is not left out. As the umpire, INEC has been organising training workshops for many of its staff; Election Management System, Election Project Plan, Election Operations Support Centre are being activated while a series of meetings are also being held with election stakeholders. I was privileged to attend one of such held with the civil society last Thursday, July 5, 2018.

It is no longer news that the 2018 budget has been signed, albeit late, and as such funding due to INEC for the preparations for the election should be getting to it soon while on the legal framework flank, we are almost there with the President already signing five constitution amendment bills with three of them having direct bearing on the forthcoming elections. Furthermore, the National Assembly had graciously passed the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2018 for the second time after the initial presidential veto in March and has sent it to the president for assent on June 25, 2018. It is hoped that in the course of this month of July, the President will sign that bill into law, thereby giving certainty to the legal framework that will be used for the conduct of the 2019 general elections. The only major challenge to the 2019 polls is insecurity which I hope will be drastically contained before the election period.

According to Worldometers, “the current population of Nigeria is 195,919,277 as of Monday, July 9, 2018, based on the latest United Nations estimates.” An estimated 60 per cent of the country’s population are youths within the age bracket of 18 – 35 years old. Now, what are we doing with this youth bulge? How does government view this population; as asset or as liability? How are we harnessing this teeming population for national development? How are we mobilising them to participate in politics and decision-making process?

I am involved in a research entitled “Youth empowerment and Political voice” supported by Baywood Foundation, an indigenous non-governmental organisation and spearheaded by the trio of Prof. Isaac Olawale Albert, Prof. Martin Ike-Muonso and Dr. Ozonnia Ojielo. The aim of the project is to publish a book on the research title for a possible continent-wide advocacy for youth political empowerment. Last weekend, at the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ibadan, a peer review workshop was held with each of the researchers having an opportunity to present their findings for value addition.

It is interesting that our collective research on the subject matter reveal that there is no conscious effort on the part of the Nigerian government to politically empower the youths of the country. Many of the youth empowerment schemes are clever ruse to gag youth voice and politically disempower them. The tokenistic approach of supporting a handful of youths in petty trading, farming and vocational skill acquisition will not give them the political voice to engage actively in politics and occupy decision-making positions either in politics or governance.

Our audit of the newly signed Not-too-young-to-run bill shows that the lowering of qualification age to contest the position of President, House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly membership from 40 to 35 and from 30 to 25 years respectively as well as registration of 68 political parties is laudable. However, these steps are not adequate and may not make much impact on youth participation in politics.

As I observed in my presentation at the aforementioned peer review workshop, while the opening up of the political space is heart-warming, it is not far-reaching enough to engender robust youth participation. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria needs to be further altered to provide for Affirmative Action for marginalised groups such as youths, women and Persons with Disabilities. For instance, the Ugandan Constitution makes provision for special interest groups such as women, youth, workers, persons with disabilities and even the military. They all have seats reserved for them in the Ugandan 418 member parliament.  Article 78 of the Ugandan Constitution requires parliament to have one woman representative for every district.  There are 112 Districts in the country.  Other interest groups are the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (the military) which has 10 reserved seats in parliament; the Youth, Workers, and Persons with Disabilities who have five reserved seats each. Of these seats, one of them is reserved for women and in the case of the UPDF which has 10, two are reserved for women.

Other militating factors against meaningful youth participation in politics is the high cost of politics as well as the prevalence of electoral violence which ironically is largely perpetrated by delinquent youths. It is important to state that the kind of youths being encouraged to actively participate in politics are not the deviants involved in drug abuse, illiterate and purposeless. Should the future of the country be handed to this brand of youths, it becomes a fait accompli that the nation will be run aground.

I must also hasten to say that it is not only by contesting elections and winning that youths can participate in politics. There are several other avenues. These include registering to be active members of political parties, contesting intra-party leadership positions, volunteering to serve as party agents, organising political debates, registering to vote, voting at elections and engaging in mandate protection. Other avenues include election observation, voter education as well as monitoring of campaign promises with the aim of holding government to account.

For the youths wanting to contest elections, it is imperative they learn to network and synergise. They should leverage the Information Communication Technology, particularly the social media to galvanise the political movement that can earn them victory akin to the phenomenal achievement of a 39- year-old Emmanuel Macron being elected as France president. And for those who complain of the high cost of politics, my advice is that they should start their political career at the low level and move gradually up the ladder. My research shows that the following Nigerian political juggernauts – incumbent Governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Authur Okowa; a former Edo State governor, Chief Lucky Igbinedon; a former Oyo State governor, Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala; Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, Senator Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon, Senator Ita Enang, a former Plateau State Deputy Governor, Dame Pauline Tallen, among others all cut their political teeth at the local government level either as councillors or Local Government chairmen. Today’s youths should know that a tree is not climbed from the top but from the bottom.