As the world marks the International Youth Day on August 12, Nigerian youths have been called upon to make their voices heard during the 2027 general elections. Views sought by THE WHISTLER advised the young ones against political complacency.
Samson Ugwu runs a youth empowerment foundation. Ugwu said, “Youths should be the leaders of this nation, and not just leaders of tomorrow that will never come. We should see how youths fare in other parts of the world. How do we influence government’s decision-making in Nigeria? We still have people in their 80’s as political leaders, and we clap for them. We celebrate appointment of youths as PAs, SAs, online influencers, and praise-singers.”
Ugwu blamed lack of youth interest in the Nigerian politics to non-functional civic education in the nation’s school system. “Our youths don’t know that we should be part and parcel of what is going on. Everything revolves around politics. In the US, for instance, children become aware of their primary duties from teens. They grow with the mandate of upholding the US values. They know their rights and responsibilities. The state also performs its statutory duties for its citizens. These things are lacking in Nigeria. That has created apathy among Nigerian youths. Many simply want to obtain qualifications, get jobs or travel overseas. Our youths are not properly guided from the scratch.”
Mr Innocent Egumgbe, a youth development initiative, decried the posturing of few Nigerian youths in government. He stated that those in government have not mobilised their colleagues towards maintaining common fronts against bad leadership.
“People claim that old people are ruling Nigeria. But we have our youths as local government chairmen, state assembly members, National Assembly members, commissioners and so on. Some of them are youths in their 30s and 40s. But they are after enjoyment and wealth. They lack focus. They want to build war chests. This is unlike before when our youths in government were after good names and posterity.”
According to Egumgbe, “You hardly see any of them embark on youth development initiatives that will make other youths get close to power. These privileged ones sponsor attacks on other aspiring youths who challenge their principals. It contributes to the nonchalant attitude of our youths towards elections.”
Meletus Nwadike is a youth leader. He told our correspondent that Nigeria’s political system has been constructed to oppress youths.
According to him, “Our leaders have weaponised poverty. Many Nigerian youths live below the poverty line. They can easily be bought over. But our youths should wake up. If we miss it in 2027, the next five years will be tough. We must not wait for these old leaders to get saturated. It won’t happen. We should get tired of just being social media influencers and thugs. We should vie for positions. Nigeria has over 70 percentage youth population. We should look for credible candidates, especially the youths, and vote for them.”
He said election rigging and electoral judicial frauds would be a thing of the past if Nigerian youths unite against injustice.
A lawyer, Florence Ugwu, agrees that Nigerian youths in government lack integrity. “They are after wealth. They lack values. They want to enrich themselves. The change we anticipate in Nigeria has to start with the youths. The youths should have a unanimous voice come 2027. Our leaders pocket more than 50 percent of our resources, and the remaining is scavenged by the remaining few.”
She called on youths to empower themselves through skills acquisition.
“Skills will enable them to have legitimate sources of living. Once one can afford one’s basic needs, coupled with contentment, the weaponisation of poverty by our leaders will diminish. Hunger makes the youth vulnerable.”
A lecturer, Nkemka Ejiofor, regretted that election manipulation is becoming a norm in Nigeria. “What has happened to elections into student union governments in our various institutions? Most of them are rigged by the same youths we are clamouring for. Beyond complaining, let’s look into ourselves. It is easy to complain.”
Ejiofor blamed Nigerian leaders for what he called “the clueless status of most Nigerian youths today”.
“We have privileged youths who are the constructs of our leaders. These youths are empowered to be doing the biddings of their godfathers. We have the category I can call ‘less privileged’. They do not belong, and they make up over 90 percent of Nigerian youths. They resort to betting and all forms of gaming. They have no voter’s cards. Some of them resort to other means, including the popular yahoo yahoo. But it is the system that pushed them to the extreme. They don’t vote during elections.”
(The Whistler)
