Paper/Proposal Title
Youth Activism in Post #Endsars Era: Envisioning a United Nigeria through the Exercise of Voting Rights
Location
M2380
Start Date
11-2-2023 1:45 PM
End Date
11-2-2023 3:15 PM
Keywords
Youth activism; #Endsars; Right to vote; Nigeria; Political participation
Abstract
Youth activism is an avenue by which, typically, young people engage in civic and political activities that help champion a course, change government’s unpopular policies or create other long-term changes in their communities. As the largest demographic group in Nigeria, youths have recently, shown a strong willingness to participate in activism. Recently, in October 2020, the Nigerian youths, led by some youth activist, championed what is perhaps the most united, decentralized and successful protest in Nigeria through the #Endsars protest movement. Despite the large proportion of young people and youth activism in Nigerian, they have not achieved the level of inclusion required to gain representation in Nigerian politics. This study engages secondary sources to investigate the interplay between, youth activism and youth political participation in Nigeria, using the #Endsars movement and the recent political awakening of the youths as a unit of analysis. This paper argue that, through activism, youths can boost political processes and attain equity in the Nigerian political arena by fully exercising their voting rights.
Author/Speaker Biographical Statement(s)
Dr. Alex Cyril Ekeke is from Nigeria and holds an LLB from University of Jos, Nigeria in 2005, LLM in 2014 and LLD in 2019 both from university of Pretoria, South Africa. He was a Postdoctoral research fellow at the department of Public Law, Nelson R Mandela School of Law, University of Fort Hare, East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa and a Lecturer at the department of General Studies, Federal College of Education (Technical), Omoku, Nigeria.
Youth Activism in Post #Endsars Era: Envisioning a United Nigeria through the Exercise of Voting Rights
M2380
Youth activism is an avenue by which, typically, young people engage in civic and political activities that help champion a course, change government’s unpopular policies or create other long-term changes in their communities. As the largest demographic group in Nigeria, youths have recently, shown a strong willingness to participate in activism. Recently, in October 2020, the Nigerian youths, led by some youth activist, championed what is perhaps the most united, decentralized and successful protest in Nigeria through the #Endsars protest movement. Despite the large proportion of young people and youth activism in Nigerian, they have not achieved the level of inclusion required to gain representation in Nigerian politics. This study engages secondary sources to investigate the interplay between, youth activism and youth political participation in Nigeria, using the #Endsars movement and the recent political awakening of the youths as a unit of analysis. This paper argue that, through activism, youths can boost political processes and attain equity in the Nigerian political arena by fully exercising their voting rights.
Comments
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