Yiaga Africa has expressed concern over the low number of young Nigerians as party candidates ahead of the 2023 general elections, with only 1,899 youths aged 25-30 out of 15,336 candidates on the ballot.

This is contained in a preliminary report on the youth candidacy in the 2023 elections in Nigeria presented to participants at a media roundtable on youth reporting organised on Wednesday in Sokoto.

Presenting the report, Ibrahim Faruk, Yiaga Africa programme manager, attributed the problem to the high costs of nomination forms, highly commercialised party primaries, the substitution of candidates and the de-registration of political parties.

“The highly monetised party primaries shrunk the political space and limited fair competition. This was a development that stopped most young aspirants from pursuing their political dreams due to non-affordability of the forms and lack of resources to procure delegates,” explained the Yiaga Africa official. 

Mr Faruk said youth candidacy in the 2023 polls stood at just 4,398 out of 15,336 candidates, representing a paltry 28.6 per cent of the total number of candidates.

“Key findings by Yiaga Africa from the 2023 candidates analysis also indicate that 43.2 per cent of youth candidates in the 2023 elections were direct beneficiaries of the Not-too-Young-to-Run Act,” the Yiaga Africa programme manager added. “Moreover, of the 15,336 candidates on the ballot in the 2023 elections, 4,398 are youth candidates, with only 1,899 between the ages of 25-30 years.”

According to Mr Faruk, among the young candidates, seven individuals representing 0.2 per cent, belong to persons living with disabilities in the 2023 election, while 11 per cent are female youth candidates.

“We are, therefore, of the opinion that 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,” he pointed out. 

(NAN)