By Adaeze Nwoke, Youth Advocate and Development Consultant
Every election cycle in the Niger Delta, we hear the same promises from the same faces. The same governors who presided over crumbling infrastructure stand on platforms promising transformation. The same senators who voted against resource control amendments return to the same podiums urging patience. And too often, the same youth who should be demanding change are deployed as political thugs for the very people blocking their future.
This must change. And it must change from within.
The Niger Delta has one of the youngest populations of any region in Nigeria. Over 60% of residents are under 35. This is not a demographic crisis -- it is a democratic opportunity that the region has consistently squandered by allowing a gerontocracy of political gatekeepers to decide who gets to run, who gets funded, and whose candidacy is considered viable.
In the 2023 elections, fewer than 8% of candidates for governorship, senatorial, and House of Representatives seats across Niger Delta states were under the age of 40. In a region where young people constitute the overwhelming majority, this is not representative democracy -- it is a form of political exclusion dressed in the language of experience and deference.
The solution is not to wait for space to be given. It is to organise, to fund each other, to build the grassroots networks that political parties cannot ignore, and to contest -- even when the odds are stacked, even when the money is short, even when elders say to wait your turn.
Your turn is now. The Niger Delta will not be saved by those who have had forty years to save it and chose not to. It will be saved by young people who refuse to inherit a broken region and instead decide to rebuild it.