WHY THE YOUTH BLOC IN AFRICA CANNOT BE IGNORED
Over the past few years, young people across Africa have demonstrated their power in becoming drivers of change. Their passion for a just and better society is fuelling a powerful movement that cannot be wished away. Be it sit-ins, walk-outs, demand letters, protests, or demonstrations, the youth are proving to be the only people agitating for political, social, and economic change.Youth in Africa share and are faced with the same frustrations of political and economic exclusion and feeling pushed to the limit, they are now coalescing to fight for their survival by challenging the old guard and galvanizing to keep the pressure on their governments to listen and respond to their cries.
When history is written, the place of young people in agitating against bad leadership, poor economic policies and political decisions made by their governments will not be forgotten. Sudan led youth-revolution that started against the tripling of the price of bread became a widespread movement that led to the ouster of the 30-year dictatorial rule by Omar El Bashir. One iconic reminder of the brevity of young people in the picture of 22-year old Alaa Salah, who standing on top of a car with her finger pointed to the sky, recited a revolutionary poem to thousands of protesters gathered to protest against Omar Bashir’s government. She and many other youths in Sudan are credited for fueling the country’s revolution.
In Uganda, Thirty-seven-year-old Robert ‘Bobi Wine’ Kyagulanyi, has had numerous run-ins with President Museveni government over his hard-line stance over the removal of presidential term limit and challenging the status quo power in Uganda. He has declared his intention to run for the 2021 presidential election against President Museveni who has ruled for 34 years. He is counting on his Peoples Power movement, a grassroots youth movement to wrestle Museveni grip on power. Whether he will be successful or not is a question for another day but his courage to challenge Museveni is unmatched- in a nation where the president has a stronghold on state power.
In Nigeria, tens of thousands of youth have in the past weeks taken to the streets to protest against the police Special Anti-Robbery Squad, known as SARs, for its extreme brutality and profiling particularly against the youth in the country. The unrest in Nigeria has gripped world attention and drawn equal condemnation. What started as protests against extreme police brutality, extortion, and harassment of young people by SARs, has morphed into a broader protest against bad governance in a country that has been plagued by corruption, insecurity and violation of the basic tenets of human rights. What stands out in these protests is the relentless power of the youth in agitating for change. Despite the government’s response to the cries of the youth protestors with greater brutal force, more youths continue to come out to make history by challenging the unthinkable.
President Muhammadu Buhari has in the past come under fire for his snide remarks on Nigerian youth. During the Commonwealth Business Forum in London two years ago, he was quoted saying that “More than 60 percent of the population is below 30, a lot of them haven’t been to school and they are claiming that Nigeria is an oil-producing country, therefore, they should sit and do nothing, and get housing, healthcare, education free.” This is despite Nigeria being the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty in the world and a massive youth unemployment rate tripling in the last 5 years that he has been in power.
In 2016, he was fiercely criticized for saying that some Nigerians in the UK, mostly youth, are in jail abroad and that they shouldn’t try to claim asylum there. His words have come back to haunt him following nationwide anti-government protests led by the same youths he tagged as lazy. The government was forced to dissolve the controversial unit on October 11.
For a long time, protests in Kenya over extrajudicial killings, lack of employment opportunities, and electoral reforms have largely been carried out by the youth who feel disenfranchised and who blame their self-centered political leaders for not articulating their needs. Instead of pushing the peoples’ agendas such as the creation of employment and access to government and social services, they are focused on discussing their salary increment in a country where 15.9 million out of 44.2 million Kenyans are poor.
Remember the youth protests in Tunisia calling for equality and more economic opportunities and the biggest student protests in South Africa against a proposed hike in tuition fees?
The world has not been listening, now they’ve got our attention. The youth are more fired up now. Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo once warned African governments not to ignore the youth and warned that youth unemployment was also a time bomb for Africa and urged leaders to act on it by ensuring that youth are kept active.
According to the African Development Bank, more than 200 million of the continent’s 1.2 billion people are aged between 15-24, and that number is set to rise to 321 million by 2030. With such numbers, it is hard to ignore the youth bloc and their voices cannot be stifled anymore. Therefore, African governments must take deliberate actions to safeguard the youth by creating opportunities for them to participate in politics, jobs and overall inclusion in development.
Mukami Mungai is a Communication specialist for The CARROT Co. Follow her on twitter and facebook:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
- Get link
- Other Apps
