Yiaga Africa has embarked on another campaign with the ultimate goal of increasing the participation of competent young people in electioneering in Nigeria.
The project, ‘Run To Win’, is designed to support young women and men with capacity and character to contest and win elections in the country, according to the nonprofit.
Yiaga Africa said it launched the ‘Run To Win’ project to address the demands from its ‘Not Too Young To Run’ campaign.
President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law the ‘Not Too Young To Run’ bill in 2018, following Yiaga Africa’s campaign, to encourage youths to aspire to high offices in the governance of Nigeria.
Essentially, the law reduced the age qualification for president from 40 to 30; governor from 35 to 30; senator from 35 to 30; House of Representatives membership from 30 to 25 and for House of Assembly membership from 30 to 25.
Nigeria’s population is young and fast-growing as nearly 70 percent is below the age of 35, according to the United Nations 2019 World Population Prospect.
‘For Yiaga Africa, the ‘Not Too Young To Run’ movement was a huge opportunity and still a huge running experience for us, and one of the things we have learnt after passing the bill into law in 2018 was the very fertile ground for our youth’s political participation’, the nonprofit’s Director of Programmes, Cynthia Mbamalu, said during the virtual launch of the ‘Run To Win’ campaign monitored by Development Diaries.
‘We saw in 2019 elections how young persons, including those with physical disability from different works of life, supported the movement but did not just stop there; they owned the movement, idea of youth political participation, and we saw that level of consciousness amongst young people with the number of young people who aspired to contest for office and post the party primaries.
‘We saw reduction in number but we still have reasonable good percentage of young candidates, and we have done some work with some of the young candidates.
‘However, post the elections, not all young candidates emerged as winners of the elections but we had some major wins and we think that 2019 elections showed us the importance of working together with young vibrant people, young women especially’.
Funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Netherlands, through Voice, the ‘Run To Win’ project will be implemented in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Enugu, and Lagos states, the development partners confirmed.
The Project Coordinator, Voice Nigeria Team, Ijeoma Oku, said, ‘Voice programme is based on the principle of ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ and everything we do is about the right holders.
‘It has been a tough journey for Yiaga Africa and Voice Team because you [Yiaga Africa] have the expertise and competence, and we are just there distributing money. Thank you for taking this grant’, Oku added.
Photo source: j-No
