Yiaga Africa calls for investment, capacity building for young legislators

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

Yiaga Africa has called for investment and sustained capacity building for young legislators.

It said the investment was necessary guide first-time lawmakers, to improve their knowledge of
legislative practice and procedure.

Mr Samson Itodo ,Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, made the call on Tuesday in Abuja, during the convergence 5.0, which saw young parliamentarians from states and National Assembly.

He harped on the need to ensure young legislators were assigned leadership roles in legislative committees to maximize
their intellect, energy and creativity in improving legislative governance.

He advised the establishment of Youth Parliamentarians
Forum as legislative committees to guarantee access to technical and financial resources to facilitate active youth participation in parliament.

Also speaking, Yiaga Africa Director of Programme, Cynthia Mbamalu, said convergence 5.0 is the largest gathering of young legislators in Nigeria.

“The platform enable young legislators to learn from experts in the field on how best to effectively deliver leadership.

“It is also a platform for young elected representatives to learn how to build power and how to best navigate the politics in the National and State Assemblies, hence the theme, leadership, power politics.”

Speaking further, she said despite signing of the Not-Too-Young-To-Run bill, with hope of having more young people in politics,the progress has been slow .

“In 2019. We celebrated about 13 Young people in the House of Representatives, which was a far increase from where we were in 2015.

“We also have 20 young people who are under 30 years old, who won the elections in 2019 in the state assemblies two women under 35 years old who won that elections.

“1n 2023, we hoped for better but yes, it did not go the way we were expecting but we still have things to celebrate.

“In 2023 for the first time since our transition to democracy in 1999, we can proudly say that in the House of Representatives, we have two lawmakers who are between 25 and 29 years old.”

On his part, the Deputy Head of EU to Nigeria, Alexandre Borges-Gomes, who represented Samuela Isopi, the European Union Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, said that the inclusion of young people in the electoral process and as political representatives was only fair but also good for development.

“This is often not the case ,especially where there are more young people, adopting a youth-inclusive legal framework should be a priority.

“The passage of the Not-Too-Young-To-Run law is a step in the right direction ,however, it has not translated into a quantitative increase in youth political participation, only it has expanded the space for their political participation.

“A good law is only as good as its implementation, and thar needs political will to change .”