The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has said it will deploy youth-only election observers for Nigeria’s 2027 general election as part of efforts to deepen young people’s participation in electoral processes across the region.

Head of the ECOWAS Electoral Assistance Division, Serigne Mamadou Ka, disclosed this at the 5th edition of the Sectoral Reflection Series on elections and democracy organised by the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA) in collaboration with Legis360.

Ka said ECOWAS had piloted the youth election observer initiative in Côte d’Ivoire and subsequently replicated it in Benin, with plans to extend it to other countries, including Nigeria.

“Definitely, we are not going to leave Nigeria out in January,” Ka said.

He said the initiative was part of ECOWAS’ broader efforts to promote youth representation in electoral processes, particularly against the backdrop of low political participation among young people across West Africa.

Ka, however, identified lack of access to finance as the biggest obstacle confronting young people seeking to participate in politics.

He listed other barriers as inadequate education and training, social and cultural factors, gender bias and weaknesses in internal democracy within political parties.

He said:”There are many barriers. There are social and cultural barriers, and we have gender bias against women and girls, for instance. But I think the nerve of everything Is finance.

“Unless young people can access finance, I don’t think they can do much about political participation.”

The ECOWAS official blamed political parties for restricting opportunities for young people to participate in politics, arguing that exclusion at the party level inevitably affects participation at the national level.

Ka said access to finance must be complemented with education and training, noting that empowering young people with the necessary resources and knowledge would enable them to confront some of the barriers themselves

He said: “There are also legal barriers, especially where political parties do not promote internal democracy. That is part of the problem.

“But to me, finance comes first, alongside education and training. If we can help young people get more access to finance, education and training, they can even solve some of these problems themselves”.

He added that technological advancement was gradually helping to weaken some cultural barriers by exposing young people to political developments and experiences in other parts of the world.

“Cultural barriers, I think, are beginning to disappear because of technology. Technology is helping more people understand what is happening in other places and learn from those experiences,” Ka added.

On youth participation in elections across West Africa, Ka said it remained low despite young people constituting the majority of the population in many countries.

He said: “Participation is low in every country you take in West Africa.

“Young people form the majority of the population. In some countries, they constitute 70 per cent; in some countries, they are 60 per cent; and in some countries, 50 per cent or more. But their participation is always low.”

Ka said the problem started with political parties, which he accused of failing to create sufficient opportunities for young people within their structures.

“As I said, it starts from the political parties themselves. They don’t allow young people to participate. And if they cannot participate within the political parties, how do you expect them to participate at the national level?” he asked.

He said ECOWAS was promoting greater inclusivity from the party level to the national level, but urged young people to take greater responsibility for advancing their participation.

“We can promote it, yes, but the hope is now on young people to take it further,” he said.

Ka urged young people to become more organised and committed to political participation, stressing that ECOWAS could provide support but could not take up the responsibility on their behalf.

“We can push, but we want young people also to be more organised and committed

“If you don’t help yourselves, nobody will help you.”

Executive Director of PAACA, Ezenwa Nwagwu, said mainstreaming young people into ECOWAS election observation was important to strengthening democratic participation and ensuring that young people were adequately represented in electoral processes.

Nwagwu spoke on the initiative at a Sectoral Reflection Series, which also examined the outcomes of the Youth Democracy Conference in Dakar, Senegal.

He said the initiative’would help integrate young people into an election observation system where they had historically not been sufficiently represented.

Nwagwu stated: “It is also about how to mainstream young people into the election observation network of ECOWAS,”

“This has been going on in ECOWAS for as long as possible, but young people have not actually been mainstreamed.”

Nwagwu said greater youth participation was necessary because democracy provided citizens with opportunities to influence decisions affecting their lives.

He urged young people taking part in election observation to acquire sufficient knowledge of electoral laws and regulations, warning against treating elections as an activity in which anyone could participate without understanding the governing framework.

“The first thing is knowledge. If you invest in knowledge, then you can observe the electoral process according to the regulations and the laws that guide it,” he said.

“Election is a law-guided activity.”

He also urged young observers to familiarise themselves with ECOWAS protocols on youth participation, saying knowledge of the regional instruments could help promote inclusion.

On concerns over declining youth participation in elections, Nwagwu disputed the impression that young people were withdrawing from political engagement, arguing that social media activity did not provide a complete picture of youth participation. (The Guardian)

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