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- [00:01]
Temi Tayo Odeyemi
Welcome to the New Books Network. Welcome to the People Power Politics podcast brought to you by cedar, the center for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation at the University of Birmingham. Hi everyone and thanks for joining us on another episode of the People Power Politics podcast. My name is Temi Tayo Odeyemi. I'm a research fellow in Democratic Resilience at cedarc and I'm your host for this episode. Today's conversation focuses on one of the key questions in politics and governance across Africa today. What is happening to young people's relationship with democracy across the continent? Young people make up the majority of the population in many countries. They are highly visible in moments of protest, of agitation, some elements of political mobilization. But at the same time, we are also seeing growing signs of frustration of disengagement and in some instances even openness to authoritarian alternatives. So how do we make sense of this tension? What does democracy mean to young people, not just in theory, but in practice? And what shapes whether they engage or withdraw or begin to look elsewhere? To explore these questions, we dig into Africa's civic space, specifically focusing on an organization called Yaga Africa. Now, many people recall that Yaga Africa was that famous non governmental organization that spearheaded the north too young to run law. That's the historic constitutional amendment that reduced the eligibility age to contest for public office in Nigeria. That is the presidency and the legislature. Yagya Africa since extended their work beyond Nigeria to many African countries. And today it's a pleasure really to welcome their co founder and director of programs, Cynthia Mbamalu. Cynthia is also a lawyer and of course a civic leader who has led major initiatives on youth political participation, election integrity and civic engagement across Nigeria and beyond. Through her work, Cynthia has been closely involved in efforts to mobilize young people and strengthen trust in the democratic process. Cynthia, it's good to have you with us.
- [02:31]
Cynthia Mbamalu
Thank you.
- [02:32]
Temi Tayo Odeyemi
Now, let me start with your own journey. What first drew you into working on young people and politics and what were you hoping to change at that point?
- [02:40]
Cynthia Mbamalu
I started my work on youth and politics quite young. I was also at the time a student actually at the University of just in Plateau State, Nigeria. And at the time I was in my second year in the university and I guess I was just frustrated with the situation in the university at the time. We didn't have water supply, we didn't have good power supply. It seemed like governance was failing and students were dealing with a lot of challenges that ought not to be part or ought not to be part of the things they were dealing with in an academic institution.
- [03:17]
And so for me, it was more
- [03:18]
of anger and frustration with the sisters, and it was easier to look for an opportunity to engage differently. I believed at the time, I think I still believe, that I had the power as a young person, if I mobilized and worked with other youth, to demand accountability, to get government to listen to us and to get the system to work for young people. And so that was actually what even led to the crown. To the crown birth of Yaga Africa. Because Yaga Africa played in our second year in university then as a student association in the University of Jo. And we used to have this mantra then that when we speak, the government must listen. When we speak, government must shake. I'm not sure if the government was shaking at the time, but I guess it was just that realization that as a people, as a generation, I felt I had an important role to play in working with other youth at the time to engage the political process, to engage the electoral process, to ensure that we're getting younger people in government, but that we're asking elected officials the right questions. And so when we started at the time, because I was a law student at the time, so we had a lot. I had better understanding of the Nigerian Constitution. And so our initial conversations in the school, we call them democracy and breakfast dialogues. We have this breakfast dialogue where we convey students in a space, some classrooms, and we just discuss what democracy means to you. And then we read the constitution, we read like the chapter four on fundamental human rights that meant to know what their rights are. And a lot of the conversation at the time was educating our peers. As a young person, can I get my other student to care about democracy, to know what their rights are and to understand their channels of engagement. So I think because I started early, so just my desire to be part of the change process that led me into this space, and since then, I've continued in the space, and I've seen a lot of positive changes, but we've also seen a lot of stagnancy. But I think there's a lot more. A lot more hope to engage and to get younger people interested, because there's a lot of power when young people engage people.
- [05:31]
Temi Tayo Odeyemi
What really stands out is that this started in a very immediate space, the university, dealing with everyday frustrations in that space. And it suggests that political awareness often begins there, not at the national level that we often focus on. So when you started, what did engaging young people in democracy actually look like to you?
- [05:53]
Cynthia Mbamalu
I believe that at the time, when we started, my goal at that time was really to get young people to care. Because it seemed to be this growing sense of disillusionment among young people. Remember, I'm millennia. This was 2007. And because now the context is also a bit different. But there are some similarities. By the time a lot of young people were giving up on one government on Nigeria, they felt like the system does not serve the interest of youth. And there just was this level of apathy I felt my peers had. A lot of young people are definitely asking, would you vote? They tell you no, why should I vote? Our goals don't count. Why should I care? My parents told me that in their time, they told me, they'll be the leaders of tomorrow. And now they are old, they are still not the leader. And for them, they always say, we are not leaders of any tomorrow because there's no tomorrow for us. That was one conversation we started in the university. And so what I was hoping for was to get younger people interested in politics, to provide a platform where we engage politics from a transformative point of view that we also can be agents of transformation as young people to care enough to engage. I also thought there was that level of apathy and less education around, less political education. So I also was hoping to create that sense of political education awareness that could lead to consciousness and subsequently to the kind of action I wanted to. And so that was why we had a lot of those dialogue sessions on what does democracy mean to you? Why should they care? Why should young people become leaders? What are your rights? Why should we demand your right? So it was the basic put child education, get young people educated, get young fully informed. Because when polit they can take informed action. And so that was what I was expecting to achieve. And I think we've achieved a lot of that moving forward, but we're still doing a lot because now with the Gen Z, we do a lot of work now with younger people. Like, you know, there's this divide, this millennial Gen Z divide, this block hate relationship between millennials and Gen Z. But I think it happens across generations. And now a lot of my work honestly is focused on getting younger people. That's Gen Z. Now, to ask the right questions, it's okay to be angry, but anger doesn't create solutions. You need to channel the anger properly. But to channel the anger properly, you need to understand the political system, you need to understand the electoral process, you need to understand how governance is structured. And so investing in that education. Because at the foundation of every movement, of every social political movement is knowledge. And so if there's no knowledge. You would have this disorientation in the process of trying to achieve change. But if you have knowledge, then you can have a better coordinated approach to achieving the change you want to achieve within the timeline. You want to achieve that. And so what I honestly the desire I had dedicated the same desire at the time, it was get people to care, get people informed, get people educated. We had this work we used to do. Then we reach out to the Nigerian Bar association and we request for them to give us free copies of the Constitution. And so one of the incentives was if you, if you participate in our dialogue session, you get a copy of the Constitution. Because we also felt at the time, my, my colleagues and I that led the organization to be like every Nigerian youth should have a copy of the constitution. Because with the Constitution you know how to engage better. But how do you engage if you don't know what the Constitution is? And a lot of us are Christians or Muslims. We have our Quran, we have our Bible, but we don't have the Constitution as a citizen. And so we're very intentional around getting free copies of the constitution to give it to students. But we tell them that as a citizen listed to your Bible, it is your Quran. This is what tells you your role and your place in Nigeria and within the country. And so for me, that has been my goal. Get people informed, get people aware, get people engaged. And then now we're doing more with the younger people because also think that there's that knowledge gap. And so we need to engage better or invest more in providing political education to the Gen Z that we interact with now.
- [10:02]
Temi Tayo Odeyemi
It's quite interesting to see how you sort of distinguish between Gen Z's and millennials. And that is quite important for us so that we don't have this umbrella thinking that when we talk about young people, I didn't necessarily have the same orientation about some of these things. And it's also interesting to see how that understanding has also, you know, shaped the way that you have done your work and you have done wider engagement within the space. And that brings us quite naturally to where we are right now, which feels more like a much more complex moment. How do young people actually see democracy today? When I say young people now, you can then bring in your own experiences in terms of how we could have disaggregated views even within the young, what we refer generally as young people, do they feel connected or is there some growing sense of distance?
- [10:55]
Cynthia Mbamalu
Well, so I'll begin first from the youth categorization because you know, I always talk about the youth generation because there's a youth generation that has a combination of both millennials and Gen Z, which is about the age bracket. And because we're also referencing the continent, the Africa Youth charter put 35 years as the upper age limit of a youth. And so if you think about people who are 16 to 35, they are both, they cut across these two generations, but even within these two generations, they operate and engage differently because of the differences across these generations and the timeline within which people were born. And so if you ask me, I, I would start with maybe within my generation, I'm above the youth age, obviously, proudly. But within my generation, when I talk with fellow millennials, I see a lot of millennials who still believe that democracy is a better option because some of them had for the Nigerian context, some of them were born during the military dictatorship. So some of them as kids still have memories of what it felt like to live in a military dictatorship and stories of what their parents or from the news of the kind of restrictions that happen within a multi dictatorship. So it's less likely to see millennial, an older millennial, or even the millennial in their 30s who would say I would prefer a dictatorship or an autocracy authoritarian regime, because for them, I don't think that's a better option, but we need to get democracy to work or democracy is not working. But for the Gen Z, a lot of them have no memories, no connection, no history. And so you have a growing sense of dissatisfaction and disconnection from the concept of democracy among Gen Z. When Ayan began this, especially because of the context within the West African subregion where you have the emergence of military coups, military dictators taking over, and then a lot of disinformation targeted at selling military dictatorship as the better option or the alternative to democracy. So there is a growing conversation amongst Gen Z's who believe that democracy is not working, has not worked for their parents, has not worked for the ones, for the stories they've heard, and that maybe we should try dictatorship, we should try a benevolent military dictator who comes in and gets things working at all cost. And so there is that. There's. That's the current reality. If you go on TikTok, for instance, I had to join. I told myself before, I'll never be on TikTok because I thought I and I had a lot of social media platforms already. But I'm glad I finally joined TikTok. Why? Because that is where I interact with a lot more Gen Z. There are more Gen Z interacting on that platform. And if you want to talk with your community to meet them on the platforms where they, where they operate more, where they are more comfortable at and you need to talk to them, the language they understand, the language they collect. And so you cannot be engaging on young people, with young people. And you're not in spaces where they interact. But within that space, what I've seen is a lot more romanticizing the idea of a military dictator that gets things done, brings development, get infrastructure working, create employment for the unemployed youth, gets the economy moving. And there's a lot more conversation around democracy is not working. Why do we need. And so it's become quite difficult to convince young people that democracy is working, which is why we have to change strategy on how we engage. But we need to start making a case for democracy by reimagining what democracy should be introducing or leveraging more of democratic innovation that empowers younger people to become actors in this space and then creating channels for younger people to engage their peers, especially those that already, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a heterogeneous group. You cannot categorize. There's no, there's no one size fits all. And so if you understand that this is a group with several identities within this Gen Z, then you understand who are those you need to reach out to and who are those whom, when you reach out to them can influence their peers? Because there's no power of influence within the space that we engage in. But honestly, if I'm, if we talk about a lot of young people, the, that disconnection with the idea of democracy, a lot of them are asking bigger questions on why must it be democracy? It has not worked for us. And they are those who are flirting with the idea of a multi dictator. We have those, some young Nigerians. Last year there was this trend on Twitter or X calling for a military coup in Nigeria. Wasn't so that on TikTok. And so when there was a report that it was an attempted couple in Nigeria towards the end last quarter of last year, they were young people who were saying why did it fail? They thought it would be successful. And so I'm seeing these comments, I'm like, okay, it's a lot of work that needs to be done. But that, that would be my thought around this. Young people are giving up hope, but I still believe that. I don't think it's because they don't care about democracy. I think it's because they feel the system has failed or is failing. And so for them, they're looking for an alternative. So if we want to, if we make a case for democracy, I think it makes it easier for them to appreciate why democracy is still a better system than ship.
- [16:30]
Temi Tayo Odeyemi
And now that's a really striking point because what you are describing isn't just frustration, it's a search for alternatives and sometimes even openness to authoritarian options. So let me pick you up on something that you have said about spaces. Okay. Do you think democratic actors now, I mean local actors, international actors, do you think that they're actually meeting young people where they are, especially in those digital and everyday spaces, or do we still have gaps?
- [17:02]
Cynthia Mbamalu
I think there's a lot more to be done. I wouldn't say people are not doing that because I know there's a lot of work that has been going on. I mean, if you think about the third wave of democratization and the journey so far from. Actually, if you look at the African context from the 90s when there was a lot of democracy adaptation and transition to one to multiparty democracy and then transition from military to civilian rule, there's a lot of work that's going on. My proposal would be that we'll become a lot more conscious of the deep trend sees in the generations and the evolution of the communication or information space. And that is because once upon a time we political actors and political parties or political leaders were informing or influencing lifestyles and things going on in our respective spaces. But now you have the big tech, you have those who design the technologies, you have those who are not an AI expert, but all those who control the algorithm or the who build and design the model. They are informing how we interact and operate. And so we have to play a lot of catch up because you can be having conversation in classrooms, in offline spaces. And one video goes viral and that video undermines the hard work you've done in those offline spaces. And then it informs how offline would engage. Because as it goes viral, communication moves so fast that you have younger people who watch talk online share on their WhatsApp page, someone who was not on TikTok, was on WhatsApp, see this and it informs their actions. And so if we also understand that in the work that we do studying the generation, it's part of, it must be part, must be an integral part of our work. And it also gets institutions to review their strategy of engagement in the organization. For instance, in Niagara, Africa, one of the things we started doing was last year we set up what we Call the Gen Z Innovation Democracy Lab where Gen Z Democracy Innovation Lab did here. And the idea was get young people, have Gen Z apply, they show up. We do the initial education around democracy's policy, not the usual political education. Then he allowed them to create or come up with ideas on how to engage their peers, what they want to do, why, why should they care about democracy and what kind of actions they will take and then the realm with it. Because we found out that for younger people, they want to be part of the process, they want to cook it, they don't want you to tell them what to do because they are very autonomous in their thinking, they are very independent minded in the way they approach things and they don't have the care a lot of older people do have. So they will question everything and they'll speak to you the way they want to speak to you because that's how they feel free to speak. They are a lot more expressive and because of social media and born in the age, in the age of technology, they are connected to people in other part of the world. So they are influenced by a young person in Nepal, a young person in Bangladesh, a young person in the us, in Canada, in Sweden. And so you're dealing with a world that is so interconnected now and you need to ensure that your strategy is in tune with the current reality. And so if you ask me if what if they are doing enough, I'll say we can do better and I'll break it into the institution for civil society, for instance, which is where I come into when we design programs now we can no longer design programs like we're experts of the issues, we have to start co creating with younger people. Let's talk with them. What do you want? What strategy you think would work? How do you want to be engaged? How do you think your peers would appreciate these issues? What language do you want us to speak? Do you get bored with this long paper to deliver? Should we make it simplified? Should it be in video format? You know, let's co create our program design must adopt that strategy working with younger people, especially if it's around democracy and transformative leadership, because we need them on board for government institutions. I still think that. Let me look at the Nigerian context for instance. Our government institutions still operate like military dictatorship era because they are not very open to engage, to answer questions or to respond to questions. They don't even want answers, not excuses. And so if the national assembly has a legislative agenda and youth is not an integral part of that agenda, no matter what they do whoever sit as a successful assembly because for them, all of all you've done is alien to us. And the national assembly members, the lawmakers or Senate president or speaker sees a question online as an attack on their character or on their politics rather than a demand for accountability, then they will never leave the door open to engage young people. Young people are not here to tell you nice things. As a Senate president, you do something they said they messed, they wanted to respond. And so the character of governance must also evolve because we're in an age of information where younger people want answers. They don't want to praise and bow to you. They don't have that culture of bowing to you because you're an elected official. For them, you represent me. Why should I speak to you? Respectfully, I'll speak to you because I elected you or you are in office to represent me. And so that fear that Olapu will use to, you know, the Nigerian thing will be dobale to Dalet leaders. Jes are not here to double to you. They're not here to bow to you. They are here to ask you questions. You're not ready to accident leave. And so the go. The character of government must also change because younger people want open conversation, they want dialogue, and they want to be part of the design process. And I think the last part for me would be even in the media, media, maybe academia, because I also think there's a lot of work that happens, research and study. I engage in some of these reports on democracy, decline in democracy, what are the options? But most times I read this report, I smile and I laugh because I'm like, I don't know which Gen Z will take this report and read this detail. Even for the academia, for the research and studies that we have going on, we need to start communicating in a way that young people will pick it up and run with it. We need to learn how to leverage the standards of communication to engage differently. Because the truth is we're losing the game. Those of us who care about democracy, we're losing the game. Because the alternative they allowed, they are well funded, they are well coordinated, and they are moving their messages in a very strategic manner. And we are not learning, we are not seeing that. And so we have to start understanding that the audience is changing, the culture of our audience is changing. And so the culture of our strategy must also change. Our product must also change. We need to evolve with the time, but that's the world we live in. But I, I don't have the right answer for this, but this, these are just my initial thoughts because I, I, I really need a lot of reflection, especially working with younger people and engaging within different countries in Africa. And one of them I keep hearing, learning or hearing from them is, you guys think we're not smart. You guys think we're lazy. You guys think we don't care. We actually care. We actually want democracy to work. We just don't have the patience that you have. We don't want you. I'll give you a simple example and I'll end with this story. I was on the podcast some weeks ago with Agency. We're talking about politics and I'm talking about the ways to engage government. And most times you need to speak to government in a way that you leave the door open to influence change. You don't want to become antagonistic and shut the door at your face. And then she looked at me and said, said, I thought this was a democracy. Why do we need doors? We break the doors, we break the world. Why are you always being nice? And she said, and you know when she said that, I said, that's different. Because for us, we want to speak nicely, calmly. We are very diplomatic. They don't have, they are not interested in being diplomatic. And she's like, why do we need doors? We break the dot, we break the world. We, we get in and we get our voices heard, regardless, which is what you can also see in the car talk process. If you look at the Gen Z process in Kenya or the NSAs, you call them coconut head generation. Because they don't, because for them, we don't have leaders, we don't have structure, don't talk to us. We just want this done and want it done now. We don't want excuses. So we need to understand that things are changing now. We need to move with time, with the times, especially with the generation that we operating with. Because that is one way to keep the attention. That's how we can get the attention and we can inform or influence the kind of actions that they will take.
- [25:46]
Temi Tayo Odeyemi
Oh yes. What I really find really interesting is that young people are already practicing forms of democracy in their own spaces, in their student unions, in their associations, in their informal groups, even those outside the regular educational settings. They are organizing, they are making decisions, they are resolving conflict, they are electing leaders. They are doing some elements of democrat accountability mechanism, to put it that way. But that doesn't always carry into how they engage with national politics. So why is it disconnect? Why don't those everyday experiences and spaces translate into broader democratic engagements.
- [26:29]
Cynthia Mbamalu
I think my easy answer to that would be need to provide more support to those existing structures and the ongoing work by young civic actors and young student leaders in those spaces where they are very familiar and they still exist, but some of those structures still exist. We have what we call the not young to run hub, setting up a tertiary institution. And the idea was they already have young leaders in schools. Can you work with them? You know, just providing the basic information that they need. And then they set up their hub and they use the hubs to promote political participation for young people, get young people interested in politics, engaging elections and what have you. And we see that is, we see the benefits of that. So identifying what exists and investing and supporting that rather than reinventing the wheel. So we're not going to create new things to act. What exists here? What are these people already doing? And then we support that. I believe that that is what we need to start doing more. There are new centers of power. We call them new centers of power in Yaga, Africa because they are voices. Some of them are influencers. They have large followership on social media platforms and they talk about social issues. Now we identify those voices and support them more, provide them with the platform to, to expand their reach. I, I think that's also something that we, we need to do. Recently we started doing work with young creatives or found out that some young made people through their spoken word. They talk about socialists, they talk about the need for young people to care through their music and art. And we're like, let's leverage art for democracy. And so also saying, you already, you're doing this, so it's already you're, you're going to whom is already engaging and you're building our support team gap so that it expands its reach. And so for me, that, like I said, that was my simple answer. Let's constantly do the hard work of finding out these innovative structures or existing structures that are in different community literary institutions. I'm big on student environment because I'm also a product of student activism and so I'm always big on that. In I would rather special institutions or institution of learnings provide us a cocktail of diversity, you know, creative, creativity, innovation, excellent academy. Difference is you see a mixture of so many and most times we lose, we lose that opportunity when we don't engage those spaces. That is where you get the brilliant minds that become the transformative leaders that you want. But if there's no platform to help channel all of those energies, all of that enthusiasm and passion. If they don't invest and harness that properly, we would lose out because subsequently they'll get tired and they'll fizzle out. And so let find them early supporting what already exists and, and helping them understand how to move forward. If I give a simple example with the Ask for Democracy initiative we started running so we had this young creative sign up. A lot of them are people that are socially, they promote socially conscious art. And then we have conversations, first sessions around democracy, what democracy was, you know, what's the trend on democracy, what are the principles, the tenets of democracy. And then we looked at institution of government. It was, it was interesting that a lot of them cared about the process, but they didn't have this basic information and they didn't understand the interrelations between the arms of government or even the levels of government. They say, oh, these are the arms of government at the federal level, at the state, at the local level. This is how you can engage at the entry point of engagement. And after that I remember some of the uncle told said oh, now when I put a spoken word it will be from a place of information because now I know the kind of message to put in. And then those that have app so you could see how just working with those that already care made it easier for us to. We didn't do a lot of work, we just did take information and then they run with a lot of their content. And so we must constantly and consciously in the academia, in the civil society space, look, I want to say government, but most times government is not very interested in building new leaders. But let me also believe that our audience is beyond the Nigerian space. But in every space that we are, we must consciously identify what already exists, supporters initiatives, provide them with the right information they need so that we can subsequently harness the potential in that space. If not, we're going to lose out. And I'm very big on the academia because I do believe that tertiary institutions of learning, there's a lot of potential there. And most times we lose out when we don't identify them and properly support them to achieve the kinds of purposes that we want them to achieve.
- [31:20]
Temi Tayo Odeyemi
So let's extend that beyond Nigeria now and talk broadly across Africa. The point that you have just made now I consider it very important actually in terms of how young people develop some of these orientations and whether they will be more drawn towards democracy and how they then understand the intricacies of how things work. You did mention that you were interacting with agency and the orientation was that why should there Be a door? Why can't we just break off the door? Why should there be a door? So the aspect of how they develop the orientations that make them to us understand processes and things that need to be in place for democracy to have a form, to have a structure, who should be leading that conversation? Not just in Nigeria, as we said now across the wider African space. What opportunities are there that we are not looking at in making sure that this happens?
- [32:16]
Cynthia Mbamalu
Well, so I'll give an example for the Ghana 2024 January yeah, 2024 general election. I was in Ghana for the election of the long term observer. So I got. I spent a lot of time across different communities and I was in the northern region very far From Accra, about 30 hours drive from Accra. And in that case I met some young people from the political parties. And what I found interesting was the political party at the time that NDC and ND NPPA had student arm to mobilize students to become members of the parties. And I found that interesting because these were those the students now became the voter mobilizers. So I went to some communities that were not even, you know, very accessible and I saw students wearing the T shirt of the party going to talk to like house door to door education, talk to people about why they need to vote the candidates for their Catholic that they should vote for. Why those candidates were the best candidates for the people to vote for. That for me I interrupted about between five to ten of them. The youngest was 18 because most of them were first time voters. 18 I think the oldest was 21, 18, 19, 20 year old. And it mentioned that they were students and that they joined the copy a year ago or so and they just register to vote and that will be their first election. So it was just interesting to see that level of effort by political parties, at least by the two parties. Those I saw their members, I don't know about the parties but those that I saw the youth members going out the street, I found that interesting. I think that's something we need to start promoting. Can we have political parties that are a lot more institutionalized in a way that they invest in recruiting young members, youth members who are first time voters, creating a structure within the practice for them where they can provide leadership within the practice and providing them the opportunities to build their capacities when it comes to political leadership and engage their peers. I think that is an example that would go a long way in inspiring faith in democracy because younger people, when they see their peers talking to them, it also inspires them to join the party. Like oh this, my friend just joined this party. They will make party membership fun. You know they, they say the word we're vibing. You know, I, I, I don't even know a lot of Gen Z terms. You know you make it so fun and attractive that being a member of your party and having a team in party becomes a trend. I, I saw that as a very good opportunity and you'll be, I mean I was not surprised on how the elections went in Ghana and the level of internals for that election. So that's something that I think is important. Another thing I saw was I think we need to support beyond getting practice to properly institutionalize and create youth way that actually reaches out to young people. And I use the Ghana experience because working in Nigeria we work with some political parties and I want to talk with some of the youth members and these young people are in their 40s and I'm like these are not the youth. Why is the youth leader at the world level a 40 something year old man? You are taking up the space for the young people. I want to see your youth leaders that are 19 year olds, 21 year olds, 25 year old. That is what I want to see. So I love this experience in Ghana because it showed that it's possible and that's what we're trying to preach even here in Nigeria that get younger people involved, let young people have a space, give youth leaders the youth leader roles to people that are actually young people. The other experience was in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone had the elections in 2023 and I was around for the elections and I loved the fact that they were the idea of seed grants to young people to engage to promote civic education and democratic education and this time and you don't need to look for because a lot of them don't have registered organizations. You know, they don't have structures, structures because they are still emerging. So if you say you want to give a seed grant of $1,000 for instance to young students and what we want you to do, design a program, we provide you a coach who will coach you through the process and we want you to design initiatives to talk to your peers on social media in your campus and where have you, where are you? These guys, we saw that example. We even, we had to actually reach out one of our partners to provide some state grant and we provided some of these young people, they don't have registered organizations. They were just very conscious youth engaging online already. They applied, they went through a training process and they were Going out into the communities with very little money. But you could see results. Now that is something we can actually begin to. Because most of them do not have the patience to set up an organization, go through the tuition process, put in, get the head of this, head of that. You know, when we put all of these bureaucratic restrictions, you limit their energy and the way they want to engage. And so for me that was helpful because we saw a lot more interest among these young people in Sierra Leone. The kind of activity they were having. I didn't think of that with just very little amounts of money. So you don't need big grants, just very little amounts of money. We saw how they went into their community to mobilize their peers. That is something they can support. I think the third part for me on what exists or what, what should we start looking out for? I'll give. I would probably use examples from. You think about South Africa, where music has become instrumental in how young people use their music to get their peers to engage. In the last election in 2024, we also, we saw how music was seen as music was a tool for, for political constructness. So do we want to support young artists, young creative, to leverage their art, to push out information and then the last part of it, in every, almost every institution, they have student union government, they have student union parliament. Unfortunately, some tertiary institutions, some private institutions are banning or restricting those activities or those structures within the schools. Some of them have claimed, oh, this is where protest does not make sense, to protest in school, to disrupt academic calendars and what have you. But I think that is a disservice to young people within the continent. Why? If you think about the pro democracy movement in a lot of our countries in Africa, they think about the anti apartheid movement in South Africa. If you think about the anti military, the fight against dictatorship in Nigeria, the fight against one party system in Ghana, in Kenya, a lot of that was led by student movement, the student activity, student unionism was integral in the fight for democracy. And you talk, you, they always say that the special institution was the heart, that was the heart of revolution, the heart of activism. And so students were moving from one campus to the other, getting their peers to fight against authoritarian regime and military dictators. They were writing articles on newspapers, publishing it in, you know. Now it's unfortunate that in this supposed democracy, especially in Nigeria, a lot of tertiary institutions are banishment activism. Yes, they are shutting down student union government or student union parliament. And even for the not young to help wanting to start up, that was even how we found that it was very difficult to get them to engage politically. For some of the tertiary privately owned school. They said no, they don't care, they don't want young people to participate in politics, that they wanted to just focus on academic. And the argument I had with them was politics is in everything. These are the supposed leaders of today and tomorrow. If they don't engage the political process at this early stage, then what kind of leaders would we hope to have in our country? So we cannot claim that because of our fear for protest, we then shut down the spaces for students political engagement in schools. We're losing out, we're losing it. And we won't have achieved the democracies we have or the successes we had so far. If we had a dying student community that is dying now. I'll take that. Unionism was not in its, at its peak. And so the last structure for me would be we need to start talking to the academia. We need to get the tertiary institution to understand that that is the space where political activism should be in, that is where civic activism should be in. We need younger people to care about politics by engaging in school politics first. And we need the union to become active again because that is where you breed, that's where you build the capacities for leadership and that is how you build resilience because democratic sustainability is, will be, will be built or rather will be achieved through a resilient population. But if you don't have that happening in those cases, then there's no hope for our democracy. So I'm hoping this podcast would actually be shared with a lot of this school because it's quite sad to go to home of these schools. And students are not even. They are not engaging, they are just going to classes, coming back, no debate. There are no debates happening before you have debate, you debate the policy. You know, we're not having those intellectual discuss and debates. We just go to school and come out. And that is not, that's not what we build our democracy, our democracy. We need a lot more of those students, unionism, civilization, debates happening in those spaces. That's how we build leaders.
- [42:02]
Temi Tayo Odeyemi
Yes, and I think that the point you have just made about universities is really striking because on the one hand, they are supposed to be exactly those spaces where people first learn how to engage, how to debate, how to organize. Not just universities, even other educational settings generally. But at the same time, as you have just noted, in some cases those spaces are becoming more restrictive. Whether it's limiting students unions or narrowing what participation looks like or should look like. And it's something I'm starting to think about as well from the aspect of research and all of that, in terms of how young people encounter politics in these everyday environments, not just at the level of the state or nationally as we tend to focus on. So there is almost a tension there. And I guess the question is how that gets addressed in practice. Is this something that needs to be tackled more structurally now through policy or even legislation? Or is it more about how those pieces themselves are being managed and engaged?
- [43:12]
Cynthia Mbamalu
Well, this question is packed and I feel like where would this one package? Because there's a lot of perspective to this. But maybe I'll start with this. Yeah. Which was a proposal. Even in the question during the legislation. Most of our academic special institutions, they are all. I mean there's a legislation that enables setup of institution, there's a government body that regulates how special institutions operate. And I do believe that at the policy level we need to have legislation that ensures that in school students have the freedom to set up their sud, state union government or senior representatives and whatever name it wants to be called, but that freedom to set up something that gives them the decisions to already power to make their decision. Where you're having is even for schools that have the student union governmental representatives, what you have most times is the leadership of the school who controls everything that happens, that they determine who wins the election, determines who and how long they stay in office. And it's no longer a periodic of the student themselves. And so students have lost that power need to know that they still have the power to effect and create change. And it begins with how we give them that agency in those spaces they occupy to set up and manage their own structures. So legislation can be a way. Um, however, I believe that with the constitution, we already have a lot of constitution promotes freedom of association and assembly and all of that. And so what we just need is that construct policy level for the agencies that manage or regulate tertiary institutions at a policy level to make it mandatory that leadership of schools provide that freedom for students to engage. And then it can be things like code of conduct if they want, but that should be part of the policy because that's how we produce leaders. If we are hoping to have leaders that are educated and well read, well backed on issues, then we cannot shut down the places they are learning because we're hoping that the leaders we have tomorrow produce from our tertiary institutions here or within the continent. The second for me would be I believe that there's a lot of opportunity in green Research and study. We want to see a lot more study on the Gen Z Gen Alpha. What are the likely traits on how they engage at exit? Let's invest more in learning the generations coming Gen Alpha. I think gen better was from this year if I'm not wrong. That's the generation after Alpha because of the work we do on youth. I'm consciously reading, trying to see what exists in the space in the academia
- [45:49]
on this that we can engage. And so I do believe there's a lot of knowledge gap. We need to learn more about generations coming after and how they like to engage and structures that they they prefer to engage on. And so I believe this should be. We need to invest more in knowledge production around the youth generation, the emerging youth generation, the emerging new generations, whatever I want to call it, we want to learn more about them because that way it informs how we design and engage with them. And I think the third part would be if you think about where behaviors and characters are formed is a lot of the digital space. Digital literacy is key need to invest in that. But can we start having conversation with the big tech, those developing the technologies we're using because people are influenced. You could preach, I remember, I don't know if it was a pastor who was saying that you can give your sermon and then your child goes on TikTok or on Instagram and learns their own sermon from there. And so can we start engaging these platforms, the big techs, in how design of their, how their products are designed in a way that the spaces promote some level of civic and democratic education. What we're having is with the algorithms, a lot of times what gets seen. What gets seen is not as positive as you'd expect it. And that is what influences actions and behaviors and character. You hear people talking about how there's a growing rate of suicide amongst young people. There's going level of depression amongst young people. Is a lot of hate and dangerous speech and online bullying happening? The question is how is it that some of those content still get or receive the most reach and has a lot more impression. It's because the way the algorithm is designed, they pick up on things that are very sensational that you know, are very jarring and what have you. And so what gets seen is what the algorithm decides. And those things that gets you most times are not the most positive. We're fighting a battle to safeguard democracy, but you have a lot more narratives that are anti democratic that are reaching the younger audience and a wider audience. And so it's like you're working offline, but it's being countered online. We need to start talking to these big techs. How do we get them on board? How do we get governments to negotiate with them? Better to engage with them. They're better to properly regulate the space in a way that the kind of practices we want are what is being promoted. I don't have the answers for this, but this is something we need to reflect on because the truth is you should, I don't know if you're on TikTok, spend time on TikTok, watch one video. Sometimes there are things you get into one space and a lot more content around that space gets into your face. And then sometimes you get really worried. You're like, what's going on in the world? That's how worrying it is. But we are doing a lot of work forgetting that that is an important sector to engage. Those are major actors in the world we live in. It's not even the lawmaker in the national assembly. Those are major actors. The role you have with your legislator is to get them to understand the issues so that they use their political powers to engage those who design the tools and the technologies we are on currently. And maybe my last point on this would be the regular education that we do, the engaging in all the conventional spaces. A lot of countries within the continent are very religious, very traditional still. So maybe we need to start engaging in those, the religious leaders, the traditional leaders, all of those people who still are the opinion leaders in their communities. So we have to reach out to them, both the conventional and the unconventional spaces. I still believe that there's a lot of value they bring. There's a lot of value they bring and we need to engage them on that. And so for me, legislation can work. Getting our institutions of learning to understand the importance of creating spaces for young people to develop themselves politically is still very important. Identifying what exists and supporting it, talking to the big techs because we cannot keep them away. The Gen Zs, the Gen Alpha, generation Beta, they live in the digital space. So we need to be sure that we have control over what happens in that digital space. I'm hoping that subsequently a lot of things would evolve but unfortunately we're in a world where there's a decline in democracy and so that democratic innovation must be at the center of it all. But I always say we need to make a case for democracy. How do we reimagining democratic participation in a way that young people become the drivers of the conversation and not just consumers.
- [50:52]
Temi Tayo Odeyemi
So insightful. Look, let me End on this. If you could change just one thing about how we engage young people in democracy today, what would that be?
- [51:04]
Cynthia Mbamalu
Okay, if I could change one thing, what would it be? I would say, this is a tough question. I'm trying to think, what would this one thing be? Honestly, I would say the one thing would be how our institutions engage with the people. The legislative arm of government, in Nigerian context, we call it the National Assembly. Other places, the parliament, whatever they call it, must create an open channel of communication with young people. Young people want to actually talk. They want to engage, they want to be involved, they want to be informed. We can no longer shut down. And I'm using that legislative because for me, the parliament is the hub of democracy. That's where our representatives are. So I'm not looking at the president. I'm not looking at even the electoral commission. One thing I think can be done is can they start having what they call open weeks?
- [51:57]
Why?
- [51:57]
I was on question with some young people and they said they don't know what their lawmakers are doing. What's. What are their representatives doing in National Assembly? Some of them don't even know the role of the legislative arm of government. And you hear them say, scrap the campaign, scrap the National Assembly.
- [52:11]
You're like, you can't.
- [52:12]
That's the hope of democracy. And so one thing I want is, I would want to see the parliament change is their mode of communication and channels of communication with young people. Let them introduce open week online sessions where they have open conversations with young people. And when I say open week, in a month or in a quarter, they can be an open week. So this period, our doors are open. Young people can visit. We have dialogue sessions with young people. They ask us questions, we respond. They can have sessions on X or Instagram Live or Facebook Live sessions or whatever channels they want to leverage where they just. All they do is respond to questions, open mics, anyone that wants to speak, speak and will respond to it and would work on that. And there is a process of following up on some of those conversations and commitments. I think that is very important. You said one. The second for me will just be simple culture of deliberate democracy. We started exploring with that. How do you get people in the community to come together, deliberate on an issue and move forward with the resolutions? Because for me, young people just want to be heard. They have a lot to say, but they don't have those platforms to be heard. So can we just create more platforms for younger people to be heard, for
- [53:27]
their voices to be heard?
- [53:28]
Temi Tayo Odeyemi
Thank you. Very much. That's been one very thoughtful and important conversation. And thank you also to our listeners for joining us on this episode of People Power Politics Podcast. What this conversation makes clear that young people are not just simply disengaged, they're actually reimagining. The way that engagement should happen. And points that have come to the fore is that even within young people there are categories and we really need to understand how to disaggregate and engage the categories differently so that we are speaking the language that they understand and engaging them in spaces where they would rather want to be engaged and also the role of institutions in allowing that expression to happen and in so doing giving young people the opportunity to develop democratic capabilities and and agency. And also young people civic spaces, students union, students associations also become important platforms where people can experience how these things would happen in broader macro spaces and then the experiences can then travel to how they view and interpret and perceive democracy more broadly. My name is Temitayo Odeyemi. I'm a Research Fellow in Democratic Resilience at Cedar, and I've been speaking with Cynthia Mbamalo, a lawyer, civic leader, and Director of Programs at Yaga Africa. If you enjoyed this episode of the People Power Politics Podcast, do share and join us again as we continue to explore how people power and politics interact across different contexts. Thank you very much and see you again. Thank you for listening to the People Power Politics Podcast brought to you by cedar, the center for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation at the University of Birmingham. To learn more about our center and the exciting work we do on these issues around the world, visit our website using the link in the podcast description.