Demographic Strength Is Not Enough: Why Nigerian Youths Must Organise
By Usman Mujtaba Shehu
Out of Nigeria’s roughly 250 million people, more than 50 million are young people aged 16–35. This demographic fact is obvious, yet its implications remain insufficiently grasped—not only by policymakers, but by democracy itself.
Nigerian democracy now stands at a crossroads. On one side are the political actors who systematically extract from the system for private gain; on the other is the steadily eroding trust of citizens in the institutions meant to serve them. Free and fair elections have become as unreliable as the national power supply—intermittent at best, absent at worst. In one state a governor publicly praises INEC; in the neighbouring state the same institution is denounced after the next poll. The inconsistency is no longer surprising; it is structural.
It is against this backdrop that we approach the 2027 general elections. My particular concern with the youth is not abstract: I am one of them, and we constitute the single largest bloc of the population. Yet sheer numbers do not automatically translate into power. The Pareto principle still holds: although young people form the majority, only a committed minority among us will drive meaningful change on the issues that the most affect our generation.
Nigerian youth are entering another election cycle inside a political system deliberately structured to reward sycophancy over accountability. Beyond any single election, democracy itself remains under threat for as long as the integrity of the voters stays in doubt. How can a democracy endure—let alone thrive—when citizens lose the practical ability to decide who governs them?
How did we arrive here? The answer is as painful as it is multi-layered. Governance has been reduced to a competition to empty the public treasury. That treasury is funded by taxpayers and was meant to finance the infrastructure and services that improve ordinary lives. The predictable result is that more than half the country now lives in extreme poverty, including an entire generation of young people who feel they have nothing left to lose except their marginalisation and their poverty. A generation with almost no stake in the society they inhabit is a dangerous political reality.
Yet political apathy is not the answer. Young people must move from the sidelines onto the field—active participants rather than passive spectators. First, we must reaffirm our belief in democratic processes. This election cycle should command our attention and our planning. We must be prepared to rewrite the script; otherwise we cannot confront a political class that is corrupt, self-serving and skilled at manipulation. Until we confront what stands before us with conviction and sustained effort, electoral outcomes will continue to reflect the interests of the powerful rather than the choices of the people.
We should refuse to remain permanent victims of an imperfect democracy. Those among us who are educated and organised carry a particular responsibility to reach those who are not. A significant number of young Nigerians never attended school, dropped out early, or could not afford to continue. The out-of-school crisis is not confined to children; many young adults are also effectively unschooled. The roughly 20 percent of us with the resources, networks and education to act must treat this as a collective task. The issues are too urgent for half-measures, laziness or aloofness.
The task before us requires all hands on deck—including Musa in the North, who may sell sugarcane for a living, and Blessing in the South, who may be struggling to survive in an informal economy. Their economic circumstances should not make their political voices less important. If anything, those who bear the greatest burden of bad governance have the greatest stake in changing it.
Election Day should not simply be another day of political theatre. It should be a day when Nigerian youths exercise the power that democracy gives them: the power to choose who will govern them.
The 2027 election is a golden opportunity for young Nigerians to look beyond political class and elites and ask harder. As Dr Usman Bugaje has put it, “2027 is a chance for the youths to take back their country”. We must come back to our senses and stop imitating the worst habits of the current political class and begin the harder work of replacing them. We must refuse to be manipulated.
The script can be changed—not through violence, thuggery or disorder, but through the quiet, decisive power of our votes. We have no reason to be afraid. With our numbers, they already know: we can.
Usman Mujtaba Shehu writes from Kano and can be reached via usmanmujtabashehu@gmail.com