Following a decline in youth candidacy for the 2023 general elections, the European Union (EU) Ambassador to Nigeria, Samuela Isopi has warned against the dire consequences of excluding youths from political participation and decision-making.
Isope, who spoke on Wednesday, in Abuja at a two-day conference for 150 young legislative candidates across the country, organised by Yiaga Africa regretted that young people were being excluded from power worldwide despite having a population of about 1.2 billion, aged between 15 and 24.
She said: “The world today is very young, the world today is up to 1.2billion young people aged 15-24, Which represents the largest young generation in history with Africa leading in the number of young men and women worldwide but indeed, young people not only in Nigeria are excluded from job opportunities, power.
According to her, the decline in youth participation could be attributed to a series of factors which she said included: the high cost of nomination forms, the need for wealth to do politics in Nigeria and lack of inclusion in political parties.
Presenting a report, titled: ‘Youth Candidacy in the 2023 Elections’, Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, regretted that findings indicated a decline of youth candidacy from 34 per cent in the 2019 general elections to 28 percent in the 2023 general elections.
Itodo said the report indicated a whole lot of factors responsible for the decline, including the excessive cost of nomination forms, and highly commercialised party primaries, among others.
Meanwhile, as part of its recommendations, the report thus read, “To secure electoral victory for youth candidates, political parties should provide technical, financial and logistics support to young male and female candidates during the campaigns.
