Too young to run, old enough to protest: West Africa’s unfinished democratic bargain

Young Nigerians won a 2018 constitutional change lowering age limits for elective office, but party nomination fees can run up to 100 million naira and one state set a local chairmanship fee above the position's entire four-year salary.

President Tinubu's new Electoral Act, signed in February 2026, doubled the presidential campaign spending ceiling to roughly 7.5 million US dollars, raising the bar further out of reach for young candidates.

At a Dakar conference convened by ECOWAS and Legis360, delegates from 12 countries, including Ghana's Nelson Asusiya and Nigeria's Cynthia Mbamalu and Ezenwa Nwagwu, described a generation old enough to vote and protest but still treated as unready to govern, even as it makes up about 70 percent of the region's population.

The gathering unfolded against a fractured regional order: Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger formally quit ECOWAS in January 2025, meaning millions of young people now sit outside the very bloc debating their inclusion.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.