2027: 37m Young Voters Could Shape Election Outcome, Chain Reactions Africa Says

Sunday Ehigiator

Chain Reactions Africa, a public relations and communications consulting firm, has warned Nigerian political leaders that the country’s young voters could play a significant role in determining the outcome of the 2027 general elections.

The firm also urged politicians and government institutions to pay closer attention to evolving youth behaviour, expectations and attitudes towards leadership, governance and public institutions.

It gave the warning yesterday in Lagos at the public presentation of its latest youth trends and culture intelligence report, ‘Youth Futures 2026: A Culture Intelligence Report on African Youth’, held in Lagos.

The report identified gaps in youth employment, mental health infrastructure, digital rights and online safety, as well as policies relating to the creative economy, as some of the areas with significant implications for young Nigerians.

Speaking at the event, Managing Director and Chief Strategist, Chain Reactions Africa, Israel Opayemi, said young Nigerians could no longer be regarded merely as an electoral constituency to be courted during election periods.

According to him, their changing experiences and choices around work, migration, identity, technology, relationships and meaning were increasingly shaping their expectations of leadership and institutions.

“Young people are not simply the audience of the future; they are already living through the future that the rest of society is only beginning to understand.

“Their choices around work, migration, identity, technology, relationships, and meaning are not isolated youth behaviours. They are signals of where society itself is heading.

“This insightful report by Chain Reactions Africa allows us to listen to those signals – not to speak for young people, but to understand what they are already learning to live with,” he said.

Opayemi said data from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) showed the scale of the youth electorate ahead of the 2027 elections.

He said Nigerians aged 18 to 34 accounted for 37,060,399 of the 93,469,008 registered voters in the 2023 general election, representing 39.65 per cent of the registered electorate.

“This is a significant number that can potentially determine the outcome of the 2027 elections if they turn out in good number to vote again.”

He said the report’s findings on governance also showed that young Nigerians had not abandoned the idea of governance, but had become increasingly sceptical of institutions that had failed to meet their expectations.

“Young Nigerians have not given up on governance; they have given up on the specific institutions that have consistently failed them.

“In the trust hierarchy, the report shows that self-trust and peer trust run high, community trust follows, and institutional trust sits as the weakest layer, one that must be earned through proof loops, not assumed. Nigerian youths now trust based on proofs.”

He added that institutions could no longer expect young people to trust them merely because of their status or promises.

“Institutions do not earn trust by asking for it any longer. Rather, they earn it by doing the thing they were supposed to do or promised to do and being held accountable when they fail.”

Opayemi also drew attention to what he described as a widening mismatch between the speed at which youth culture evolves and the pace of institutional response.

“Culture now moves in hours and days, brands respond in weeks and months, and government policy in months and years,” he said.

He therefore called for cultural intelligence to be embedded in public policy and business decision-making processes, rather than relying on reports after problems had already emerged.

Opayemi also said the #EndSARS protests had permanently altered the relationship between a generation of young Nigerians and the Nigerian state, adding that the scepticism created by the experience could only be addressed through demonstrable change.

Speaking while unpacking the report, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Innovation, Chain Reactions Africa, Franklin Ozekhome, said trust in institutions could still be rebuilt when young Nigerians saw evidence of competence, responsiveness and accountability.

He cited the digitalisation of tax processes by the Federal Inland Revenue Service, visible infrastructure delivered by some state governments and government agencies that responded to public complaints with tangible resolutions as examples of how institutional trust could be restored.

“Legitimacy is now a function of demonstrated competence and accountability,” Ozekhome declared.

He identified four areas where the gap between youth realities and policy responses was particularly consequential.

They included youth employment policies designed around formal jobs that many young Nigerians would never hold, mental health infrastructure, digital rights and online safety, and policies supporting the creative economy.

Ozekhome said young Nigerians were not merely consumers or participants in economic activities but were increasingly influencing how industries, communities and culture evolved.

“Young people are not simply participants in the economy; they actively shape how industries evolve, how communities form, and how culture travels. The decisions young people make today will influence the decade ahead,” he said.

He described the relationship between young Nigerians and authority through four paradoxes: “Intimacy Without Trust, Visibility Without Safety, Belief Without Institutions and Mobility Without Arrival. Today, belief, in particular, is being assembled outside churches, governments and formal organisations, and mobility no longer guarantees progress.”

Ozekhome also cautioned political actors against relying solely on the aesthetics of youth culture to connect with young voters, noting that the same digital infrastructure that enabled mobilisation during #EndSARS could also facilitate coordinated disinformation.

“The tools of power are not exclusively in good hands,” he warned.

He also cautioned political leaders and businesses against treating Nigerian youths as a single bloc, stressing that their experiences and expectations differed across regions and communities.

“Lagos is not Nigeria. Life’s condition, not age, is the variable that matters most. Youth culture in Kano, Enugu, Port Harcourt, and Ibadan have their own mentality and decision frameworks. So, a campaign built on visibility alone will not earn belief,” he said.

The report was produced by strategists, trend spotters, culture anthropologists and industry experts working across brands, business and youth culture in Africa.

It examined the experiences, choices and cultural shifts shaping the next generation, with particular attention to governance, trust, work, migration, identity, technology, relationships and the creative economy.