CVR: How Youths Will Decide 2023 Presidential Election

As the 2023 general elections draw near, it has emerged that securing the support of the youth voting bloc will, in no small way, decide the winner of the much-awaited polls.

Data obtained from the Independent National Electoral Commissioner (INEC) shows that since the commencement of the ongoing continuous voter registration, 11,011,119 have enrolled to obtain their permanent voters’ card, of this number 7,828,570 are youths between the ages of 18 to 34.

During the 2019 general elections, the voters’ register was made up of 42,938,458 youths which represent 51.11% of the 84,004,084 total number of registered voters.

With an addition of close to eight million youths, the percentage of youths on the register is now around 56 percent

Some experts who spoke to THE WHISTLER said the trend is reflective of growing interest in the electioneering process among youths.

Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) told this website that beyond just being on the voters’ register, it was important for young people to partake in party politics.

“Young people have realized that if they don’t participate, their future will continue to be in darkness, and therefore they have to actively participate to ensure that the right people are elected. I think it is a good development that we have many young people participating in the electoral process, and not just be used for thuggery by politicians, this development is a paradigm shift that the young people are determined to ensure that their future is not being mortgaged by those people who use them for electoral violence or vote-buying. However, it’s important that, apart from them being registered, they should also partake.

“Unfortunately, political parties have already organized their primaries, they have alienated many competent and qualified persons, however, youths still have an opportunity because we are not just limited only to the presidential election, we have the gubernatorial election, senate, house of reps, state assemblies. But all of those require active participation of the young people in order to ensure that we don’t end up with people that don’t deserve to be there, because they have no interest of the people, they have no interest of the nation, therefore, even though many young people have lost the opportunity to participate in the party primaries, they can still do damage control, particularly at local and state level, so that we don’t end up with people that have no character.

“So young people, if they are determined, can mobilize if they are convinced about a candidate from a political party, they can mobilize and support that person. It is all about voting strength, it is all about the people coming to do the right thing so that we do not have people of questionable character.

On his part, the Executive Director of Inspire Nigeria Group, Olanrewaju Osho provide some insight into the seeming sudden interest of Nigerian youths in the political space.

He said, “over time, most of the youths in Nigeria have felt that the governance does not carry them along, that the governance does not focus on their needs, that governance is not interested in their interests, the things that concern them. For example, look at the way education is being run, in the last 25 years to 27 years, most graduates have had to do a four year course in five or six years, it shows a governance that is not really interested in the youths and the things that concern the youths, otherwise, they would have addressed the cause of the perennial ASUU crisis, and then, you’ll notice that in the last 12 to 14 years, unemployment has increased very astronomically, such that you have okada riders who are graduates, you have keke riders who are graduates, so the youth felt the government does not care about us, the government that does not even believe that we exist and they totally lost interest in politics.”

Speaking further he noted that “to join the process is the right thing to do, but we have a social ideology of ‘let others do it first, I will join them later,’ that is our mentality has a nation. So this problem has been there from time immemorial and it cannot be removed overnight. There was an era that the youths were the ones running the affairs of this country, but the several years of military rule destroyed that mentality and youths became uninterested. This movement is going to happen in phases, the first phase is to get them in, and the way they are registering to vote they are beginning to lean in by looking for a candidate that is different from the establishment. But they also need to take a seat. Now they would vote, but the irony is if the candidate they are rooting for does not win, they will be greatly discouraged, this is where leadership is needed.”