2023 Election: Organisations Launch National Visioning Process to Support Youth Leadership Ecosystem

Folalumi Alaran

LEAP Africa through the Nigeria Youth Futures Fund (NYFF) has launched a national visioning process in Nigeria aimed to support and strengthen the youth leadership ecosystem.

Speaking at a press conference recently in Abuja, the Project Lead (NYFF), Opeyemi Oriniowo explained that the Project is aimed at mainstreaming the voice of young people in Nigeria to implement the sustainable development goals SDGs 2050.

He further said that the project which is being funded through Nigeria Youth Futures Fund (NYFF), is a collaborative initiative of LEAP Africa, MacArthur Foundation and Ford Foundation.

He noted that the outcome of the National visioning process is conceptualized to be pivotal to Nigeria’s 2023 democratic transition period as a youth advocacy instrument and to enable youth involvement in leadership, activism and social change.

He added that during the research of all the zones, they found out that the young people in the country are now more than ever uninterested in ethnicity and more interested in matters that affect them directly.

He said, “ NYFF is a collaborative project of three institutions, Leap Africa, MacArthur Foundation and Ford Foundation. These three institutions came together and sat down, coming off the back of Endsars, which has become a byword for youth registering their disconnect with the governance system.

“ What we are trying to do for the first time is to get a document that will represent the collective aspirations of young people across the country and to achieve this we decided to take this exercise to each of the states so we had converges across the entire country where we met with young people in each region, covering the entire six geopolitical regions of Nigeria.

“ We were in Ibadan for the South/east and spoke to young people from Lagos, Ekiti, Osun, Ondo. We were in Kano right now and we are in Gombe for the northeast, we are in Akwa-Ibom for the south south, Enugu for the Southeast, and we combinate the entire process.

“ It’s been an interesting journey talking to young people in terms of understanding the challenges that they face. We can clearly see right now that there is a disconnect between the older generation in terms of the establishment and the young people of this country.

“ We are not inheriting a country where you currently see in terms of governance solely being dictated on ethnic lines or religious lines, we see young people talk about the issues that really matter to them, issues of unemployment, issues of insecurity, issues of social cohesion to even agree on the national cohesion that won’t even want to continue to be Nigeria’s and on what bases, so that the essence of this journey and right now we’re in Abuja for the nationals where we brought together delegates from these whole six regions that we went with additional young people whole are leaders in their own rights.” He said.

Also the Director of Programmes for LEAP Africa Amabelle Nwakanma on her part emphasized the importance of mainstreaming the voices of young people in Nigeria and across Africa, adding that it is essential that young people are active participants in national development.

A delegate from the South-East Chima Christian, at the National visioning exercise, expressed the importance of the exercise in contributing towards a new Nigeria that upholds the principle of Fairness, Equity and Justice for all geo-political regions especially addressing the issues of social cohesion and National belonging.

A delegate from the North central region and lecturer at the Federal University of technology Minna, Halimah Tauheed, expressed her gratitude to the organizers of the retreat. She recalled her experience at the regional retreat as a critical effort in ensuring the holistic capturing of youth voices in each geo-political region. For her, for Nigeria to develop, it must be inclusive.