From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
A youth and women-focused non-governmental organisation, Brain Builders Youth Development Initiative (BBYDI) is currently engaging young persons across the country on the need to track youth-related political promises, manifestos, and budgets at the state level.
Speaking on the sideline of a one-day town hall meeting on YouthGovTracka (an online accountability platform) project in Kaduna, the Convener and Executive Director of BBYDI, Barr. Nurah Jimoh Sani said, her organisation came up with the initiative to bridge the gap between Nigerian youths’ aspirations in line with the state governors’ actions.
She added that the essence was to ensure accountability on the part of “our government”.So this town hall meeting is one of the part ways to ensure youths’ voices are heard. This particular one is for the focal persons in the Northwest.
“In Nigeria, democracy is more than just a system of governance, but a promise of empowerment, a commitment to the people. But, often, the spotlight of citizen scrutiny has been fixated solely on the Federal Government, neglecting the impactful decisions made at the state level.
“This imbalance has led to unfulfilled promises, overlooked needs, and missed opportunities for progress, especially for our vibrant youth and marginalised groups.
“Again, when we talk about youths, people have this mindset that it is all about young men which is not correct because it include young women.
“It is saddened that we have never had female governor apart from Dame Virginia Ngozi Etiaba who was an interim governor in Anambra State between November 2006 to February 2007. The one close to that was Mrs. Aisha Dahiru during the 2023 election in Adamawa state who was defeated in a controversial manner.
“So, this meeting has been able to bring relevant stakeholders together to foster collaborations and highlight areas of partnership towards promoting youth inclusion in accountability and governance”, she said.
Programme Manager, YouthGovTracka
Habeeb Adewale said, after the passage of not-too-young to run bill during the 9th National Assembly, the development has been effectively felt across the 36 States.
“We track the promises of governors across the states to see what they have for us. We then developed a digital tool kit where we have all these promises and then we monthly review of what these governors have done in that line.
“To arose that effectiveness, we have focal persons across the states to physically be on the ground and monitor those youth-related promises and manifestos.
“For example, after we analyse the budget of Kaduna State, we realised that less than one percent of its budget is meant for youth-related programmes despite being the third most populous state in the country”, he decried
.