Youth Deserve More

Photo: Youths Demonstrating (Photo Credit Culled from NYC's Facebook page)

Editorial

Slowly the country is heading towards 2021 General Election. Very soon, the country will be polluted with campaign noise. As usual, political parties will be traversing the width and breadth of the county lying to (oops! I would have said telling) Gambians what their parties have in store for the unsuspecting citizenry.

The youth will be the target. They constitute the majority of voters. The question we have to ponder is how much are the youth involved? As political parties are strategizing on who to incorporate in their various positions of power, will the youth have a significant representation?

Though many writers argued that in Africa, politics is typically regarded as a space for politically experienced old men, as young people are often disadvantaged in accumulating experience to run for office. Young people are systematically marginalized because of their age, limited opportunities and a lack of experience.

This problem is also particular to Gambian where politics shows no sign of progression in terms of youth involvement. We have political leaders that have past their ‘sell-by’ date. Their relevance to the country’s politics expired. They cannot respond to the present social and political challenges. We have political leadership that fears the unknown and cannot accommodate the new thinking.

This is the whole reason why we need to inject new blood across the various parties. We expect to see political gymnastics from political leaders ahead of the 2021 General Election. We will be seeing many political parties flatting out wooing the youth vote by appointing or electing youthful running mates to their presidential candidates.

The presidential candidates themselves were youthful. But there years down the line nothing has changed. The parties have not done enough on youth empowerment. The youth are still used to do the dirty work for their masters allowing themselves to be helping politicians in their political proxy wars.

They are used to disrupt rival political party rallies. They normally beat journalists for their political masters take Kebba Jeffang Jnr’s case for example.

Yes, our political leaders are good at making endless promises to the youth but this is just mere talks. Nothing tangible to that they promised is to happen. Why do we need youths in the country’s politics as we gear towards the 2021 General Election?

Youths can be a critical force, a dynamic source of innovations and they have undoubtedly, throughout history, participation contributed, and even managed to bring change to the political system.

Therefore, if we want a bright future it first needs to strengthen and empower the youth. But it is unfortunate that young people are often excluded or overlooked as political candidates. Time has come for young people to desist from being perpetrators of violence in politics and begin to eye top positions.