Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt 

Youths from the South-south zone, mostly of the Gen Z age bracket, have affirmed their desire to participate in the governance of their various states by having the opportunity to contribute towards the formulation of policies, budgets, bills, as well as the freedom to access information.

The youths made their affirmation during a technical session at the Open Government Partnership South South Regional Dialogue and Workshop held in Port Harcourt, under the auspices of PROMAD, a non-governmental organisation.

The workshop was part of ongoing moves to collate the views of young people which will be forwarded to government to use in the formulation of a comprehensive fourth national action plan on open government, referred to as OGP 4th National Action Plan (NAP IV).

According to Uchenna Isiuku, civil society adviser, Nigerian Open Government secretariat, the workshop was a platform for youths to dialogue and agree on the type of Nigeria they desire as future leaders.

“We’re here in the South-south for the youths to come around and make input on the type of Nigeria they want to see and begin to shape the future because OGP is about inclusion and participation.

“Their inputs will be collated not just South-south. There’s going to be a national validation in Abuja where we’ll also bring delegates from across the country to come and validate the inputs from the six geo-political zones. So that forms a document that goes into the action plan that government gets and acts upon. That’s the process,” he explained.

Tijani Abdulkareem, executive director, Socio-Economic Research and Development Centre (SERDEC), said they were on the verge of developing the Open Government Partnership National Action Plan iv, noting that young people deserve a space in civic engagement to enable them make their own contributions on how their country should be run.

“We believe that young people need to be engaged. They occupy huge percentage of the population and it is very important that their voices reflect the national priorities, engagement require for them to participate in the process. 

“It’s also important for government, in the spirit of OGP, to give to young people the platform to participate in governance as collaborators,” Abdulkareem said.

The workshop featured presentations from various speakers who stressed the need for young people’s involvement in governance through the open government partnership.

They proposed the institutionalisation of digital services, open policy processes, information accessibility, wider stakeholder engagements, as some of the processes through which open government partnership could be achieved to make society better.

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