Different contexts, same aspirations: Young Nigerians on opportunity, participation and leadership
Young people are often described as the future. But for young Nigerians, the question is increasingly about something more immediate: what role do we have in shaping the present?
Across Nigeria, young people experience opportunity, exclusion, leadership and participation differently. Geography, gender, disability, environment, economic circumstances and access to networks can all shape what is possible for a young person.
Yet across these different contexts, there are also shared aspirations: to have access to opportunities, to be heard, to contribute meaningfully, and to have a genuine stake in the decisions that shape our lives and communities.
For International Youth Day 2026, members of the NGYouthSDGs Youth Advisory Board reflect on what meaningful youth participation should look like; and what needs to change for young people to move from being consulted to becoming consequential actors in the decisions and systems that affect them.
Opening the Door to Opportunity
Deborah Adelaja — Education Development Practitioner
One change I would make is to reduce the access and connection gap around opportunities.
There are several opportunities available for young Nigerians, but many still battle with the unspoken gap of access and connection. Sometimes, it feels like you need to ‘know somebody who knows somebody’ before you can access an opportunity. Other times, both the opportunity and the information about it remain within certain circles, and by the time they reach others, it is already too late.
I believe we need to make both opportunities and the pathways to accessing them more open, inclusive and accessible, regardless of who you know or the circle you belong to.
Having an opportunity available does not necessarily mean that every young person can access it. And even when young people do find their way into these spaces, their realities are not the same.
We Are Not One Story
Precious Akintunde — Environmental Health Scientist
Nigeria’s National Youth Policy recognises young people between the ages of 16 and 35. That’s over 70 million people, spread across 36 states, hundreds of ethnic groups, vastly different geographies, and completely different daily realities.
Yet the development sector routinely collapses all of that into two words: “Nigerian youth.”
That generalisation is where things go wrong.
Think about three young Nigerians.
Abubakar in Maiduguri is navigating prolonged insecurity, limited infrastructure, and shrinking opportunity. Yes, his ambition is genuine, but so are the constraints making every step forward feel like an uphill battle.
Ejiro in Warri watches his community’s river darken from oil spills. The air near gas flaring sites carries toxins his body absorbs daily. He’s trying to build a career in environmental health while the environment around him is quietly in crisis.
Blessing in Abuja looks like she made it. She moved to the capital chasing opportunities, but she’s competing in an oversaturated space, paying rent that swallows her income, discovering that proximity to power doesn’t automatically mean access to it.
The problem therefore is not that young Nigerians face different challenges. It’s that we design interventions around an imagined “average Nigerian youth” who doesn’t actually exist.
Resources and opportunities must be well tailored to reach young people in Maiduguri, in Warri, in rural Benue, not just disproportionately concentrated in the capital cities.
Geography should not determine who gets developed and who gets left behind.
We are not one story. We are millions of them.
But meaningful inclusion does not end with making opportunities accessible or recognising different realities. What happens when young people actually enter the room?
Are they there simply to provide a perspective? Or are they trusted to contribute to the work itself?
What Does Meaningful Youth Leadership Look Like?
Jane Mann-Effiong — Education/Gender Equality Advocate, Media Professional
There has been a positive shift in the development sector. More organisations are recognising the importance of young people’s perspectives and creating spaces for youth advisory boards, fellowships, consultations, panels and other forms of engagement.
That is progress. But I have also come to realise that there are levels to youth participation.
Young people are increasingly being invited into rooms to speak, share their experiences, answer questions and offer recommendations. But meaningful youth leadership has to go beyond being heard. It should also mean being trusted with responsibility, given real influence, and supported with the resources to contribute meaningfully.
One experience recently reminded me of this. I watched a young girl lead a group that included policymakers, senior stakeholders and government representatives. She wasn’t simply there to share a story or give a “youth perspective.” She was entrusted with responsibility. And because she was trusted to lead, she contributed with confidence, challenged ideas and brought forward solutions.
It made me ask: what would happen if more young people were given that kind of opportunity?
Meaningful youth leadership, to me, is not just about giving young people a seat at the table. It is about giving them something meaningful to do at that table.
It also means creating pathways for emerging leaders to become experienced leaders. Experience matters, but young people cannot gain experience if every opportunity requires them to already have it.
We need to train the interested and invest in the committed.
Young people should not only leave development spaces having contributed their voices. They should leave having gained knowledge, mentorship, networks, responsibility and opportunities that help them grow into the leaders we will need tomorrow.
Because meaningful participation should not simply benefit institutions from young people’s experiences. It should also build the young people who participate.
Being entrusted with responsibility is one part of meaningful participation. But responsibility without influence can still leave young people on the margins of decision-making.
The next question, therefore, is whether what young people say actually changes anything.
Consulted and Consequential
Celestine Imianmian — Development Practitioner
Youth participation in Nigeria is happening. But is it meaningful?
Sometimes, I think young people have almost become consultants whose consultations are not consequential.
We are invited to consultations. We fill surveys. We participate in focus group discussions, town halls, conferences and policy dialogues. We are asked what we think about education, employment, governance, climate change and the future of our communities.
And yet, too often, we never get to see what becomes of our contributions.
The problem, therefore, may not always be the absence of youth participation, but the quality and consequence of that participation.
Meaningful participation should go beyond giving young people a seat at the table. It should create pathways for their ideas to influence decisions, programmes and policies. It should also involve closing the feedback loop: What happened to what we told you? What changed because we participated?
Young people should not only be consulted about the future we will inherit. We should be empowered to co-create it.
This means moving from “What do young people think?” to “How can young people help shape what we decide?”
For me, meaningful youth participation is ultimately about agency, influence and consequence.
We should not only be heard. We should matter in the decisions that shape our future.
If participation is meant to create influence, then the goal cannot simply be to get young people into programmes, consultations or rooms. It must also be about what happens after those opportunities — whether young people have the support, networks, resources and platforms to turn what they have learned into action.
From Opportunity Seekers to Opportunity Creators
Sabira Aliyu Abubakar — Multimedia Journalist
If I could make one change to improve opportunities for young Nigerians, it would be to create stronger pathways that move young people from opportunity seekers to opportunity creators.
This question resonates deeply with me because my own journey as a multimedia journalist has shown me the difference that access to skills, mentorship, networks and platforms can make.
Opportunities to learn, connect with others and contribute meaningfully have not only strengthened my professional journey but have also shaped my desire to support and advocate for other young people.
Yet, many young Nigerians with great ideas and potential still lack access to the right platforms, resources and guidance to turn that potential into impact.
Too often, youth development stops at training or participation, without providing the sustained support needed to apply what has been learned.
I would therefore like to see more investment in long-term youth development, connecting young people to mentors, decision-makers, funding, skills and platforms where they can lead and implement solutions.
Different Contexts. Same Aspirations.
These reflections come from different experiences, professions and perspectives, but they point towards a common question:
What would it take for young people to have a more meaningful role in shaping the systems and decisions that affect them?
The answer is not simply more youth representation.
It is better access to opportunities.
It is recognising that there is no single “Nigerian youth” experience.
It is creating spaces where young people are trusted with responsibility, not simply invited to speak.
It is ensuring that consultation has consequences and that young people can see how their contributions influence decisions.
And it is investing in young people for the long term — not only for what they can contribute today, but for the leaders, innovators, advocates and change-makers they can become tomorrow.
Young Nigerians may come from different contexts, communities and experiences.
But across those differences, the aspiration is remarkably similar:
We don’t just want to be included in the future. We want to help create it.
Beyond Beneficiaries
Morenikejimi Olaniran – Social impact leader/ SGBV Advocate
What does the development sector get wrong about young people?
I think the development sector sometimes talks about young people as if they are only beneficiaries of change, rather than people who are already creating it. Young people are often invited into conversations after the major decisions have already been made, instead of being trusted to shape those decisions from the beginning.
From my experience working with young people, mentoring emerging leaders, and working in underserved communities, I have seen that young people do not lack ideas, passion, or commitment. What many lack is access, resources, mentorship, and someone willing to take a chance on them.
We also need to stop measuring young leadership only by how many years someone has been doing development work. Experience matters, but opportunity is also how experience is built. Many of the young leaders we celebrate today became who they are because someone gave them their first platform, first grant, first mentorship opportunity, or simply trusted them enough to say, “I believe you can do this.”
Young people should not always have to prove that they are already successful before they are given the opportunity to succeed.
Because talent is everywhere in Nigeria. Opportunity is not.
