High Cost, Godfatherism: 72% of Youth Never Contest Any Election, Yiaga Africa’s Report Confirms
- The newest report by Yiaga Africa ahead of the 2023 general elections has revealed some fresh pre-electoral facts
- The new report was centred on Sokoto state and the level of youth participation in politics
- According to the report, the majority of the members and supporters of political parties are youths and 72 per cent of them did not contest for any office
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Sokoto, Sokoto - A new report by Yiaga Africa has confirmed that youth's participation as candidates during elections has been below par due to some cogent reasons.
According to the report made available to Legit.ng titled: "Youth Political Participation in Sokoto: Breaking the Stronghold and Creating Pathways", it was gathered that youths constitute the majority of party members and supporters.
Source: Twitter
Making reference to Sokoto state, the Yiaga Africa report says:
"The majority of youth in the state identify with political parties as registered members and supporters and in participating in party activities such as party primaries, congresses, and membership mobilisation and election campaigns.
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"However, despite their overwhelming support to political parties, youth could not participate as party candidates during elections."
The report highlighted political violence, lack of internal party democracy, high cost of party activities and a host of others as the factors responsible for these ill trends.
Findings from Yiaga Africa's research confirmed that at least 72 per cent of the youths in the state did not contest for any political position in the forthcoming general elections.
Yiaga beseech INEC, reels out possible solutions
Meanwhile, Yiaga Africa's report has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to come into the fold and help abolish this trend.
The report recommends that:
"Parties’ activities should be professionally regulated. Constitutionally INEC is responsible for such regulatory functions.
"However, such functions should be strengthened in order to ease the tension of dominance and excessive monetisation of Nigeria's political space."
The report posited that if regulatory measures are adopted in political parties, then it can help create healthy democracy in political parties.
The report reads:
"This will help in liberalising the political ecosystem to strengthen youth political participation at state levels; there should also be massive advocacy and sensitisation programmes by CSOs and other stakeholders on youth to enable them to embrace tertiary education as it provides huge opportunities for economic empowerment and political participation."
"Overall, it will translate into better and more productive youth political participation in Sokoto."
According to Yiaga Africa, the report was solely focused on youth political participation in Sokoto state
2023 polls: APC, PDP rank low in list of youth, female candidate
Similarly, another statistic released by Yiaga Africa reveals that the ruling party, APC is not youth and women-friendly.
According to the report, the ruling party was among those with the lowest number of youth and women candidates.
Meanwhile, the main opposition, PDP was also found wanting as they also recorded a low statistic of youth and female candidates.
2023 polls: CSOs harp on massive participation, reveals electorates’ point of focus
In another development, Civil society organisations (CSOs) have once again urged electorates to prioritise next month's general elections.
Electorates have been told that their vote will play a huge role in shaping the course of democracy in Nigeria for many years to come.
Meanwhile, these electorates were warned not to take any election for granted as all strata of elections are as important as the other.
Source: Legit.ng
