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Mobilising youth for effective civic participation

By Mayowa Olajide Akinleye
23 March 2023   |   4:16 am
Nigeria is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 12 of that document establishes that young people must be heard.

Nigeria is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 12 of that document establishes that young people must be heard. They must be listened to and taken seriously. It is their right. This idea presupposes that there is a speaking; an expression that is present but ignorable. Articles 2 and 13 recognize this seeming powerlessness and, in seeking to protect the right to be heard, establish that young people have a right to not be discriminated against and can freely express themselves without fear. 

Yet, 95% of its youth population does not feel heard; at least three out of four young people believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and that they are powerless to stop it. Nobody, they believe, is listening. This is a breach of a basic human right. Reacting to the Lekki shooting, one protester  said “we spoke up thinking our voices will matter, only to cruelly find out that even our lives didn’t”

Proving that rights, when not empowered by a commitment to duty, is useless. My right to life is worth something because I have a duty to not kill myself, and others have a duty to not kill me. Once commitment to that duty becomes optional, my right to life is mere window dressing.

In the longest run of our democracy, the best we have had is a tokenistic commitment to listening and accounting for the dreams, needs, and concerns of our youth population—mere window dressing. As a result, there are unequal opportunities for political participation and civic engagement, our educational systems are struggling, high youth unemployment and migration, heightened helplessness, and a lack of voice in making decisions that positively affect their lives and create social change. 

Nigeria and Nigerians have a duty to hear its young people and mobilise them to develop into active, responsive, and equal participants in the social, economic, and political fabric of her society. It is the onus of the state and its agents to enforce this duty and ensure an abiding commitment to its veracity. Why must the state do this, and how can it do it successfully? These are the questions to which this article will offer answers. 

Government’s overarching responsibility is to protect. The foundation of a state’s efficacy is steeped in how well it fares in its role as protector. This burden of ensuring security is the primal justification for the social contract that is the cornerstone of state formation. Simply put, a government that fails to effectively secure its people is a blatant failure.  

Listening to and responding to its youth population is critical for any state seeking to secure its citizens. This approach impacts security on three fronts: physical security, economic security, and political security. 

Physical security is simply the protection of assets from physical disruption and events that could cause serious loss or damage for the owner. The rise of kidnapping, militancy, and oil bunkering in the south-south; insurgency in the north east have deep seated foundations in problems created by the feeling of powerlessness and neglect young people experience. 

The fallout from the shooting at the Lekki Tollgate saw massive destruction of property in the city as well as all around the country. 205 critical national security assets, corporate facilities, and private property were attacked, burned, or vandalised. An estimated 71 public warehouses and 248 private stores were looted across 13 states. The multi-billion-naira Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) infrastructure was crippled. Police stations and offices of political parties in Ondo, Okitipupa, and Ibadan were looted and burned. Private homes and businesses of public officials were looted, and a traditional ruler’s palace was desecrated. The Yoruba have a saying: “A child that you refuse to build will eventually sell off or destroy the other things you built instead.” 

When the youth population is heard, the result is increased trust in government institutions and systems, leading to better cooperation between them and the government. This increased cooperation can result in more effective law enforcement, crime prevention, and safety awareness; an increased sense of ownership and personal responsibility that enables community policing and reporting; and a lower predilection to violence because of strong mediation and negotiation frameworks. 

The International Committee of the Red Cross defines economic security as the ability of individuals, households, or communities to cover their essential needs sustainably and with dignity. Food, shelter, transportation, clothing, healthcare, education, and means of production are examples of such needs. Economically secure countries globally—the UK, Australia, Singapore, Germany, Japan, etc.—typically have institutions and systems that ensure at least any two of political, educational, and economic empowerment for their youth populations. 

This is evidenced by quality education and skill-building institutions, open government processes, open media, open markets, adherence to the rule of law, and inclusive political mechanisms.  Nurtured by the push and pull effects of this reality, more young people become active, productive, skilled, and gain more economic and anthropological power in that society. They become smarter, wealthier, gain influence, can start new industries, and contribute excellently to existing ones, ultimately increasing the quantity and quality of production, which in turn expands economic prosperity for everyone. 

Political security refers to how resilient, fair, and efficient the governance framework is in upholding the rule of law and representing the interests of its constituency. It usually sets the stage for physical and economic security. The 1994 Human Development Report defined it as the prevention of government repression, systematic violations of human rights, and threats from militarization. These values are enshrined through the sustained development of political systems oriented towards human rights, democracy, and good governance. 

Cogent youth engagement will improve the skills of and opportunities for young people to interact with and navigate the political system, encourage informed civic participation that will hold officeholders accountable, and hence deepen our democracy. The ability for a political party to consistently identify, attract, and project credible and promising young talents within its ranks will, in time, strengthen the party’s influence, ensure the identity, values, and ideologies of the party stay relevant within the mainstream of national conversations, and will have trained and empowered new generations to carry the baton. This type of inclusive handover is crucial for political sustainability.
To be continued tomorrow
Akinleye is Impacts and Communications Assistant, PROMAD.

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