Jola Ayeye’s popular I Said What I Said podcast is a regular delve into life as a young woman in Nigeria, enlivened by boisterous discussions with her co-host and guests about pop culture, celebrity, love and friendship.
But she has recently added another topic to the conversation: the need for her generation to get out and vote in next weekend’s elections that analysts say are the hardest to predict since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999.
“I’m very invested in people understanding that your one vote is important,” said Ayeye, 30, stressing the need for her electoral cohort to ensure they get involved. “It moves you from being a complainer to a participator. So don’t just complain — instead make sure to do everything you can.”
She is one of the 37mn Nigerians aged 18 to 34 who are eligible to vote on February 25. It is the largest electoral cohort in a country with a median age of 18, and one whose endorsement will go a long way to deciding who triumphs in the presidential and parliamentary polls.
“Nigeria’s electorate is very young,” said Leena Koni Hoffmann-Atar, an associate fellow at the UK-based Chatham House think-tank. “And this is the turning point election for everyone who has come of age [since 1999].”
The big beneficiary has been Peter Obi, the Labour party candidate whose campaign emphasising accountability and frugality has caught the imagination of young Nigerians hungry for change. The former governor, 61, has also lured support from the better-funded main candidates by appealing to older voters tired of the inefficiencies and excesses of an entrenched elite. Ayeye said a vote for Obi was “the logical conclusion” of her principles.
Recent polls, including one from Africa-focused data group Stears, put Obi in the lead, although analysts say he still faces an uphill task against the powerful political machine backing Bola Tinubu, of the ruling All Progressives Congress, and the People’s Democratic party candidate Atiku Abubakar. Some experts are predicting a second-round run-off for the first time in Nigerian history.
A sign of young people’s growing enthusiasm for the process is evident from the fact that 84 per cent of the almost 10mn newly registered voters are aged 18 to 34. Almost two-thirds of the youthful cohort have no fixed party allegiance, according to pollster Afrobarometer, underlining the importance of winning them over.
Students, typically in that age range, make up 28 per cent of registered voters, the largest occupational category. Ebuka Ohanna, 22, a chemistry student at the University of Lagos, said he would fulfil his “obligation” to vote, although he had yet to decide who to support. “My priorities are security and education,” said Ohanna. “Whoever wins has to pay attention to our education.”
Hoffmann-Atar said young Nigerians’ frustrations over a failing economy and growing insecurity explained why they had registered to vote in such numbers. But she also cautioned they would only have an electoral impact if they actually voted.
Previous Nigerian elections were plagued by low turnout — just 35 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot in 2019. “You hear people’s frustrations, and people connecting those frustrations with inefficiencies in government,” she said. “A high turnout typically doesn’t favour the incumbent party, especially an incumbent party that’s been incompetent and run on autopilot.”
The galvanising moment for young Nigerians was the #EndSARS movement against a feared police unit known for harassing, extorting and even killing young people. The youth-led protests in 2020 grew into wider calls for proper governance and the efficient delivery of public services, with the security forces’ aggressive response only adding to the demands. Ayeye said support for #EndSARS was “one of the few things that young Nigerians could agree on” across ethnic, religious and class lines.
The increasing engagement of young voters has also forced the two main presidential challengers to tweak their campaigns in an effort to win votes. Billboards plastered across Lagos show Tinubu and running mate Kashim Shettima vowing to “lend a helping hand” to Nigeria’s tech sector — an industry that has attracted overseas investment and a rare bright spot for a country where foreign investment is falling.
Abubakar, the other leading candidate, told the Financial Times in December of his plans to stem the brain drain of young Nigerians leaving the country by “empowering” the private sector to create more jobs.
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, 31, co-founder of Flutterwave and Andela, two of Africa’s most successful start-ups, has consulted with Tinubu’s campaign to devise policies to help the tech sector. He agreed that young people had to make their voices heard. “When young people don’t engage, the rules are made for other people’s benefit,” he said.
Hoffmann-Atar emphasised how young Nigerians had been even harder hit by the country’s woes than older voters. The lives of “Nigeria’s democracy generation” — those born since 1999 — had been “constraining and crippling” because of the lack of good jobs during what should be their most productive years.
“Everyone has a hard time regardless of who they are in Nigeria, but for young people — in all the ways that are important to them — the current administration has fallen short. The numbers of record unemployment, food insecurity and poverty among young people speak for themselves.”
Half of Nigerians are unemployed or underemployed, rising to two-thirds among young people, according to the country’s statistics agency.
Ayeye, the podcaster, stressed how next weekend’s election offered a rare opportunity for a new generation to forge a different political path — one that worked for them. “It’s deeply irresponsible not to vote in a country like Nigeria when things aren’t going well. We can’t act like it’s business as usual,” she said.
Now was the time, she added, for young Nigerians to “consider the life you’re currently living, and the life you want to live”.