From the ecstasythat followed the initiation, legislation, passage and
presidential signing ofthe Not-Too-young-To- Run bill into law, it is as
if Nigerian youths have beenhanded a life-extending pill that will guard
them against death. But it was thesigning of a mere bill that is
remarkable because it opens the door to contestthe nation’s offices to
younger people. The prominence of the bill is that italters Sections 66,
106, 131, 177 to reduce the age qualifications to contestfor the
Presidency from 35 to 30, governor from 35 to 30, House of
Representativesmembership from 30 to 25, State assembly membership from 30
to 25. Curiously,as has become the fad with the current senate, the
minimum age requirement tocontest for the Senate was left at the same 35
years it was before the commencementof the movement but that is a story
for another day.
On yes, theage bar to contest for virtually all elective offices have been
lowered. Wildorgies have been thrown over this feat. The youths have run
themselves giddywith joy and excitement and self-congratulations have been
thrown and received.But then, what next? What follows the birth of this
new law? Is it all aboutsignificance? What practical realities exist to
push this law to the realm ofpracticality? I ask these questions because
many Nigerian youths translate thisas meaning they will easily access
power which is far from the intendment andprospect of this new law. Many
believe that the older generation willautomatically vanish from the
political stage for them to take over. Manybelieve that the political
space will transform into an exclusive play fieldfor those in their
thirties. I see these as a reflection of theshort-sightedness of our
youths who, I can vouch, hardly know the real essenceof this new law. One
can ask how many youths within or under the 35 years,which was the former
age limit for these various offices occupy these offices?
Is it hardto know that such excitement and fawning attended the periodic
reduction of theage qualification for these offices? Let us recall that
when these age limitswere crashed to 35 and 30 in the past, there were
equal exhibition of funfairbut some years later, has our political space
been taken over by the 35 and 40years old? No. it is still the same
recycling and revision of the same playersthat dominated in the past. The
youths are still out there in the field ofagitation. You can bet that
another round of not too young to rule agitationwill start soon with
demands that age qualification to contest elections befurther crashed to
20 years. I will throw a wager on this if anyone isinterested. I will also
wager that such demand would be granted with little orno effect on the
existing order that has continued to favour the older genre ofour
population in the quest for politica offices.
Let no onewalk away with the impression that I want to kill the
overflowing joy of theNigerian youths at this moment. No, rather I am
calling them to widen theinquest into the reason why Nigerian youths have
become permanent agitators forlowering of the age limits to political
offices. I am inviting them to enquirewhy youths have become agitating
spectators on the Nigerian political stagewhile the same people keep
jugging the ball to themselves no matter how low theage limit is reduced.
I am doing this with sincere intentions because Nigerianyouths, if they
refuse to do much more soul-searching, may find out soon enoughthat the
Not-Too-Young-To-Run law is a mere fantastic toy that is taking
themnowhere near power but deeper into the sidelines as permanent
agitators. Thenew law may be all about cosmetics and nothing more if
Nigerian youths refuseto carry out a deeper vouyage on what practically
huts them from politicalpower and wage a meaningful war against such
vicissitudes.
Whatever onemay say, Nigeria’s leadership challenges or that of any other
nation, is not anage issue. The developed world did not achieve the height
they have donethrough age-related calibration of their societies.
Leadership is both anatural and an acquired art and does not discriminate
along age lines. Suchother things as energy and experience are added
flairs that build leadership.If the desire that prompted the
Not-Too-Young-To-Run bill was to add toleadership, I don’t see any problem
where a country recruits its leadershipfrom the former 30 to 35 years
bracket but if the pin firing the bill is towiden the space of those that
eat the proverbial national cake, one can safelythat the passage of the
bill into law has rather exacerbated the nationalproblem. So whichever way
one looks at it, the bill is a costly toy in that thedifference between
the two age limits is just five years!
If Nigerianyouths want to make a serious inroad into the country’s
politics, they mustengage in serious soul searching and research that will
lead them to removeself-imposed road blocks and those imposed by the
elderly politicians on theways of the Nigerian youths to political power.
Lowering the age limit does nottranslate to access to political offices
and the earlier the youths realizedthis, the better for all of them.
Coming to roadblockslaid on the way of Nigerian youths to political
offices, I think youths willdrive themselves nearer to power if they
support any moves made to track andcontrol election campaign funding. This
is one of the major hindrances pushingNigerian youths further away from
access to power. If the issue of campaignfunding is not dealt with, the
old, corrupt politicians who have amassedimmeasurable wealth from looting
the treasury while in power, will continue todominate the political space
irrespective of how downward the age barrier islowered. If Nigerian youths
can form a ring against illicit campaign fundingand uncensored political
funding, they would have made the space moreaccommodating for youths
wishing to go into politics. So it will serve theyouths better if they
support official efforts to track campaign funds andpunish, by exclusion,
any violation of the desirable funding politicians shouldbring to
electoral contests.
Closely relatedto illicit campaign funding is the source of wealth of
politicians. Nigerianyouths must insist on probing the source of wealth
intending politicians bringto the table. In fact, youths must support a
critical probe of the wealth of Nigeriansbecause they are always the
ultimate casualties of laundering illicit wealth inpolitics and of course
the acute corruption that has ensured that the country’swealth ends in the
pockets of few politicians. If Nigerian youths think that
anot-too-young-to-run law is the panacea to getting them into the
shark-infestedand hugely corrupt Nigerian political space, then they are
hallucinating.
Theaforementioned cases demand that youths merge together and demand
stricterpunishment to corrupt Nigerians that employ politics to steal
public resourcesand laundering such illicit wealth in politics. This
demands that youthssupport and empower the present anti-corruption war by
the present government orany future government because they will be the
ultimate beneficiaries as itpromises to fumigate and make the political
space more accommodating to thesuccessful prosecution of their ambition. I
believe this was what the Ooni ofIfe, a youth, meant when he advised
another youth, Fela Durotoye who came tohis palace to seek his royal
blessing for his presidential ambition, to supportPresident Buhari’s
regime in what he is doing in Nigeria presently. There areno two ways
about it. Youths must show unalloyed support to track anddrastically bring
down corruption if they desire the space opened wider fortheir
participation.
Coming toroadblocks imposed by the youths themselves to their quest for
political power,it is trite to say that youths that do no self-respect
themselves are bound toend up collective failures. In a country where many
youths have taken to crime,drug trade, internet fraud, rituals, etc. as
means of acquiring fast, illicitmoney and thereafter laundering same in
politics, there is no gainsaying thatno one will take them serious.
Leadership, as I said earlier is an art that isimbued or learnt so
inordinate crave for illicit money cannot be a goodadvertisement to
leadership. A youth that is trapped by such desires will neverever access
leadership because such youths operate under a climate of mutual
suspicionand fear.
Equally discouragingis that many youths in Nigeria today are wasting their
daily energies onaligning, fighting for and defending corrupt politicians
that should be putaway for their own good. If Nigerian youths easily
mobilize themselves to offerservices to corrupt old politicians and
treasury raiders, they are creativelydemobilizing themselves for
leadership. If youths offer themselves as perpetualinternet rats and
boisterous defenders for old corrupt politicians, they aredirectly
disqualifying themselves for leadership and not even a
thousandNot-Too-Young-To-Run bills will take them an inch near political
power.
I remembersome light years ago, during the Obasanjo regime, some
politicians massedtogether under the umbrella of Under-50 politicians to
take over power, withhigh octave campaign propaganda and soundbites. They
held several meetings andmapped out various strategies to yank power from
the oldies. I wrote an articlethen to say that our leadership problem was
not an age-related issue. Some fewyears down the line, the movement has
been forgotten, most of the proponentshave died political deaths and
nothing is said of it today. My feeling is thatlowering the age limit for
qualification to political office merely admits moreyouths to contest. It
does nothing to alter the political equation to favouryouths. What will
favour youths to get into political spaces in Nigeriarequires not the kind
of confetti-throwing razzmatazz that has followed theNot-Too-Young-To- Run
law but deep strategic thinking that will dismantle themany roadblocks
placed on the paths of the Nigerian youths to access realpolitical power.