Not-Too-Young-To-Run advocates lament low youth representation

Advocates for increased youth representation in governance under the auspices of the Nigeria House of Commons have lamented the low turnouts of young people in electoral politics despite the introduction of the Not-Too-Young-To-Run legislation six years ago.

Worried by the development, the body has introduced an initiative powered by the Africana League in partnership with Kaftan TV to simulate parliamentary debate on keenly contested issues of governance and policy-making in Nigeria. 

Speaking during the live event at Kaftan TV in Abuja, Convener, Nigeria House of Common, Ms Glory Ukwenga who described the initiative as an edutainment programme noted that it seeks to stimulate the engagement of Nigerian citizens particularly youth through competitive debates while enabling the audience to have a better grasp of issues informing policy-making processes and outcomes for citizens. 

“So, the motivation is that the Not-Too-Young-To-Run Bill has been signed and since then, we still have very low turnouts of young people in electoral politics, both for elections and as people coming out to vote,” she said.

“Why is this, because many young people don’t see themselves as stakeholders in politics, and one of the ways to get them to see themselves as stakeholders is to begin to see more people like them representing them as a constituency. 

“The second reason that motivated this is that young people don’t have the resources and visibility to contest as candidates in elections. The strategy is to help them gain visibility to drive social support base among key national stakeholders and the larger citizenry including private sectors. We hope Nigeria will reach out to support them to strengthen the narratives of youth development in politics and governance.

“With regards to elections, the initiative is a creative process to put them out there so that Nigerians can see them and begin to relate to their various political aspirations so that they can now eventually support them, build some cloud base for them to support them towards whatever political aspirations they have.”

Ukwenga who doubles as the Executive Director of Africana League explained further that the initiative will showcase Nigerian youths with political leadership aspirations and policy engagement capacity to the Nigerian populace who constitute their prospective voter audience.

According to her, the initiative will bridge the gap in leadership aspirations among youths through leadership simulation and policy engagement, maintaining that it will 
promote active civic and political culture in Nigeria from the grassroots levels.

Noting that the program will spread awareness on factors that impact specific policy issues in the Nigerian environment, the convener added that it will also educate the citizenry on issues of consideration in making informed voter choices of leaders.

“So the Nigeria House of Commons is a TV show that is designed to showcase young people, to train them, and to showcase them as young people who have some grasp on policy making, and have the ability to represent Nigerians as legislators and to showcase that they have the capacity to engage in politics and governance across different sectors and across different levels of governance,” she said.

The participants and audience were youths between 18 and 35 years from across the 36 states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).