In the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will conduct elections in 176,846 polling units for elections into the office of the President, Governors, National Assembly, and State House of Assembly seats. Eighteen political parties nominated a total of 15,336 candidates for the one Presidential, 28 governorship elections, 469 legislative seats in the National Assembly, and 993 legislative seats in the State Houses of Assembly. According to the African Youth Charter, youths are classified as persons between the ages of 18 – and 35 years. The National Youth Policy defines 15 – 29 as the youth age bracket for Nigeria.
However, institutions like INEC maintain 18 – 35 years as the youth age classification for election engagement. While this age category represents 60% of Nigeria’s population, the level of youth representation is low. Youth representation in elective positions at the state level is relatively high compared to the national level positions. Following the 2019 elections, 0.6 of the seats in the National Assembly were occupied by youth. Available data shows 6% youth representation in thirty-four State Houses of Assembly and 29.7% at the local government level.
The following are some of the findings:
Poor representation of young female candidates on the list of candidates. 11% of youth candidates are female. Concerning the young female candidates, the ADC (62), AA (58), and APM (54) have the highest number of young female candidates. While the APC (9) and PDP (5) has the lowest number of young female candidates. Among the young candidates, 7 individuals representing 0.2% belong to persons living with disabilities in the 2023 election.
The Northwest geopolitical zone maintains its reputation as the zone with the highest number of youth candidates. The geographical distribution of candidates shows that the level of youth candidates in the North West is 28%, North Central, 18.1%, Northeast, 16%, South West, 14.1%, South-south 12.6%, and lastly South East with 10.4% youth candidacy.
