You should know YIAGA (Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth and Advancement), they have pioneered the massively successive #NotTooYoungToRun campaign alongside other advocacy groups – successful not just in capturing popular imagination, but also in driving the conversation – for the barriers to entry for young people into elected office to come crashing down.

Well, in case you haven’t heard, over the weekend, the National Assembly does what the National Assembly does, it killed the proposed amendment,

Hear blogger, Mark Amaza put it in context: 

“The process seemed pretty straightforward on paper: as this required an amendment to the Constitution, it required a bill to be sponsored on the floors of the Senate and the House of Representatives respectively; if passed by two-thirds of the National Assembly, it will then need at least 24 State Houses of Assembly to pass it as well. At that point, only the president’s signature stopped it from becoming law.

“The timing was great as well: the National Assembly had embarked on a constitutional amendment process, debating the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference as well as considering new items such as the #NotTooYoungToRun.”

BUT:

“The Constitutional Review Committee of the National Assembly at its retreat in Lagos decided that the bill should not make the final list of proposed constitutional amendments for debate.

“It is still quite a shock how the Committee are unable to see not just the urgency of the bill, but also its necessity – that this bill will expand the political participation of young Nigerian not just in quantity, but also in quality. It will also bring more healthy competition of ideas in the political space to the benefit of all Nigerians.

“The rejection of the #NotTooYoungToRun bill sends one loud message to young Nigerians: we do not consider you important enough in the scheme of things of this country or worthy enough to involve you fully in the political space.”

These young Nigerians won’t take this lying low, we assume. It certainly cannot afford to. This is a war against the majority of Nigerian citizens, by old men, who refuse to respect themselves. 

Editor