YIAGA Africa has called for strategic collaboration among Civil Society Organisations to achieve higher participation of youths in the coming election in 2023. Mr. Samson Itodo, the Executive Director of the civil society organisation made this call during the voter mobilisation lab for the 20 winners of #ThePowerOf18 Challenge 3.0.

He noted that achieving youth participation should be the focus of all CSOs in the country, hence, there is a need for them to work together to achieve a massive turnout of the youth in the coming polls.

He added that the participants in the voters’ mobilisation lab were the 20 selected activists who are already working on how to increase youth participation in their states across the country in support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

He said that building such capacity will enhance the country’s selection, is well coordinated and progressive. He added that the programme will train the participants on how to assist INEC to get permanent voters’ cards to all voters in Nigeria.

‘‘Yiaga Africa realizes we cannot do it alone. There was therefore a need to build a coalition. It also occurred to us that we had heard different ideas from young people but the main issue was funding. We, therefore, decided to pursue this project, with support from our partners at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).’’

“These young people selected from strategically selected 20 states in Nigeria are activists who are individually working on increased youth participation in their respective states. This consolidates the previous partnership with citizens from 15 states during the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) which ended on July 31st, 2022.

“This intervention resulted from the coalition and strategic collaboration among citizen groups from across 15 states with low CVR registration at the time. It ultimately contributed to a spike in voter registration among these states, as well as facilitated the collection of PVCs among citizens. The assurances that citizens are now more disposed to turn out and vote during elections, as well as participate in the political process has been a most remarkable achievement of this collaborative effort.

“It is therefore imperative to build on this achievement through #ThePowerOf18 3.0 by ensuring that more young people, especially women, are assisted in collecting their PVCs in the post-CVR phase. This is in addition to creating adequate awareness and sensitization that will also encourage their full participation in the political process. Hence, the VML was organized to equip these winners with the relevant tools to engage in voter mobilization in their respective states and across the country”, Itodo said.