Young people from across Nigeria’s South-South region have issued a clear demand to policymakers: genuine, structured inclusion at every stage of the National Youth Policy process, from design and implementation to monitoring and accountability. The call emerged from a zonal consultation on the National Youth Policy held in Port Harcourt, convened by the Network of Youth for Sustainable Initiative (NGYouthSDGs) in partnership with Linking Partners for Niger Delta Development (NDLink) and the Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND Foundation), as part of the Youth Voice Naija project supported by the Nigerian Youth Futures Fund (NYFF).
The consultation brought together youth leaders, youth-led organisations, civil society actors, policymakers, and development partners to shape Nigeria’s next National Youth Policy, a process made urgent by the expiration of the 2019–2023 policy cycle and the deepening socio-economic challenges facing young Nigerians today.
Youth Participation in Nigeria’s National Youth Policy: “Nothing For Us Without Us”
Participants were unambiguous in their central demand: youth must not simply be consulted, they must be co-creators. Grassroots voices, particularly those of rural youth, women, persons with disabilities, and young people in the informal sector, are routinely excluded from the frameworks that govern their lives. That must change.
The issue of youth political participation in Nigeria drew particular intensity. Participants observed that young people are frequently mobilised as foot soldiers during elections but locked out of actual decision-making spaces. The result is a generation increasingly disengaged from public institutions. “The cost of political participation should be reduced for youth to be able to aspire for political offices,” one participant stated.
Participants called for a minimum 40% quota for youth aged 15–35 in economic and governance frameworks, a demand that reflects not aspiration but urgent necessity.
South-South Youth and the National Youth Policy: Regional Priorities
The South-South context shaped the consultation’s priorities in important ways. Participants highlighted the stark tension between the region’s resource wealth and the persistent economic exclusion of its young people, flagging environmental sustainability, economic diversification and infrastructure access as non-negotiable priorities for the incoming policy.
Youth unemployment in Nigeria featured prominently throughout the day’s discussions. Access to finance emerged as a particular flashpoint. “Rigorous criteria are a barrier to accessing the funds,” one participant noted, a sharp critique of youth finance systems that have long promised inclusion while delivering bureaucratic obstruction. Participants were equally clear that inclusion must address structural inequalities across age, gender, disability, location, and lived experience: “Public institutions should be built to be inclusive.”
Calls for investment in digital literacy, mental health services, and social protection for vulnerable youth rounded out a set of priorities that spoke both to the Niger Delta’s specific realities and to the national youth development agenda.
Government and Civil Society Voices
Mr Nchelem Godwin Mekwa, Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, delivered the keynote address on behalf of the Permanent Secretary of the Rivers State Ministry of Youth Development. He described the consultation as a critical platform for engagement and co-creation, affirming that youth inclusion must be central to Nigeria’s national progress and acknowledging persistent challenges, including unemployment, skills gaps, and social exclusion.
Mary Joseph, representing NDLink, underscored the stakes for young people in the Niger Delta, urging participants to contribute fully to shaping a policy that reflects their lived realities.
NGYouthSDGs Calls on Federal Ministry of Youth Development to Act
Joshua Alade, Founder and Executive Director of the Network of Youth for Sustainable Initiative (NGYouthSDGs), said: “What we heard in Port Harcourt is not a wish list, it is a mandate. Young people in the South-South are not asking to be accommodated at the margins of this policy process. They are demanding to be at the centre of it. The Federal Ministry of Youth Development must treat these findings not as consultation inputs but as binding commitments to the generation that will determine Nigeria’s future.”
The findings from the Port Harcourt consultation will be formally submitted to the Federal Ministry of Youth Development (FMYD) as part of the broader civil society contribution to Nigeria’s National Youth Policy review process, under the Youth Voice Naija project supported by the Nigerian Youth Futures Fund.
