The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) says it will deploy youth observers alongside its traditional election observation missions to monitor Nigeria’s 2027 general elections.
Serigne Ka, Head of the ECOWAS Electoral Assistance Division, disclosed this in Abuja at the fifth edition of the Sectoral Reflection Series on Elections and Democracy, organised by the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA) in collaboration with Legis360.
According to a statement issued on Saturday, Ka said the initiative was part of efforts by ECOWAS to strengthen youth participation in electoral and political processes across the region.
He said the youth election observation initiative had been successfully piloted in Côte d’Ivoire and subsequently replicated in the Republic of Benin.
Ka added that ECOWAS would deploy the initiative in Cabo Verde for its November elections and The Gambia for its December polls before extending it to Nigeria.
“Definitely, we are not going to leave Nigeria out in January,” he said.
The ECOWAS official urged political parties across the region to open their structures to greater youth participation, noting that young people remained significantly underrepresented in electoral and political processes despite constituting a large proportion of the population.
He identified access to finance as a major obstacle to youth participation, arguing that young people would struggle to participate meaningfully in politics without the resources required to engage in the political process.
“There are many barriers. There are social and cultural barriers, and we have gender bias against women and girls, for instance. But I think the nerve of everything is finance,” Ka said.
“Unless young people can access finance, I don’t think they can do much about political participation.”
He said political parties also had a responsibility to create opportunities for young people to participate in their internal structures and decision-making processes.
Ka said ECOWAS would continue to promote inclusivity, but added that young people must also take responsibility for demanding greater representation within political parties and electoral processes.
Also speaking, the Executive Director of PAACA, Ezenwa Nwagwu, said mainstreaming young people into ECOWAS election observation missions was important for strengthening democratic participation and countering what he described as the attraction of authoritarian rule among some young people.
Nwagwu urged young people participating in election observation missions to acquire adequate knowledge of electoral laws and regulations.
He warned against treating elections as activities without a governing legal and regulatory framework, stressing the need for observers to understand the rules guiding the electoral process.
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