Action Aid Nigeria has called for more youth engagement to tackle election violence in the country.
Mr Anicetus Atakpu, Resilience Programme Coordinator, Action Aid Nigeria, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Kaduna.
He spoke on the side lines of a Stakeholders’ Engagement on Conflict Prevention of Election Related Violence in Kaduna State.
Atakpu believed that once the youths were properly engaged and sensitised, electoral violence would be reduced.
According to him, the youth are not being carried along during elections in spite of being the strongest stakeholders in the political space.
“The youth have always been the unfortunate ones, used always for the wrong reasons.
“95% of violence that happen in Nigeria are probably being carried out by the youth, so in all the elections, 90 to 95 per cent of election violence are presumed to have youths as foot soldiers.
“For election violence to be reduced, there is the urgent need to engage more youth who form the largest demography in terms of population in Nigeria,” he added.
Atakpu therefore said the country’s youth population must be sensitised on their civic obligations and the importance of election to good governance, to steer them away from electoral violence.
“Over 46% of the total population of Nigeria are youth in the ages of 18 and 35, they too also have the highest percentage of perpetrators of elections violence.
“Once the youths are properly engaged and sensitised, then to a large extent, electoral violence and the damages it causes would be reduced,”
