The admonition by the Chairman of House Committee on Youth Development, Adeyemi Adaramodu who spoke on behalf of the parliament at a policy dialogue on the ‘Not too Young to Run Act’ tasked youths to brace up for competition in politics rather than clamour, as political power is not donated anywhere.
Ahead of the 2023 general election, youths have been clamouring for generational change by asking the elders to quit the stage for them.
The lawmakers at an event organized by the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) in Abuja on Monday, said the Act will only remain a law on paper if not activated by the youths themselves, adding that they should not expect elders in positions of leadership to teach the youth how to unseat them from their political offices.
He said, “They need to get involved in community development at the grassroots and use their population to change the narrative in the political space”, he said.
He gave an example of himself becoming an elected local government chairman in Ondo State in the 1980s at the age of 29 without parental influence or resources, decrying that youth in Nigeria have integrity problems.
“If the space is not given to the youth within the folds of the two major political parties, they should as required strategically, move en-masse into any of the smaller political parties for the actualization of their aspirations”.
The country representative of Westminster Foundation for Democracy ( WFD), Adebowale Olorunmola, also at the event said Youth Participation and inclusion in the democratic governance is very necessary for Nigeria as a way of improving her not too good records in that respect.
According to him, the global index on youth and women participation in governance in Nigeria is very poor as it ranks 128 out of 153 countries sampled in the world and 27 out of 53 countries sampled in Africa.
Earlier, the NILDS raised a series of posers on the way out of inhibition of youth from the political process in Nigeria.
Some of the posers raised include, “Factors responsible for the poor participation of youth in the political process and to what extent the structure, programmes and manifestos of political parties support youth engagement and participation”.
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