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

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A regional conference held in Dakar, Senegal, in September 2026 brought together young delegates from twelve West African countries to examine why so few young people hold political office in a region where they make up roughly 70 percent of the population. Organised by the ECOWAS Commission and Legis360, the West Africa Youth Democracy Conference exposed a persistent gap between the legal right to stand for election and the practical ability to do so.

Financial and structural barriers to political office

Nigeria offers a clear illustration of the problem. In 2018, a sustained advocacy campaign known as Not Too Young To Run succeeded in lowering the constitutional age limits for several elected positions. Eight years later, however, the financial cost of entering politics has continued to rise. Party nomination forms for presidential contests can reach 100 million naira, equivalent to around USD 75,000. In one Nigerian state, the fee to contest a local government chairmanship was set at 30 million naira, a sum reportedly exceeding the total official salary for the entire four-year term of that office.

At the national level, legislation signed in February 2026 doubled the legal presidential campaign spending limit to 10 billion naira and raised the governorship ceiling to 3 billion naira. Speakers at the Dakar conference noted that changing the law had not changed who could realistically afford to use it. Delegates described young people being mobilised by political parties during campaigns while remaining excluded from actual positions of power.

Protest, democratic strain and regional fragmentation

The conference also addressed the role of protest in West African political life. Movements such as Senegal’s Y’en a Marre and Burkina Faso’s Le Balai Citoyen demonstrated that organised youth action could influence constitutional outcomes. An estimated 577 protests occurred across the region in 2020 alone. Yet protest has also provoked repression and deepened public distrust of formal institutions.

Adding complexity to the regional picture, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger formally withdrew from ECOWAS in January 2025, placing millions of young people outside the bloc that organised the Dakar conference. ECOWAS officials described ongoing but early-stage engagement with those countries. The conference’s primary institutional outcome was a proposal to establish the West Africa Youth Observer Network within one year.

The Dakar gathering concluded that legislative reform, while necessary, remains insufficient on its own. Delegates and civil society representatives called for broader changes to address the financial and structural conditions that continue to limit young people’s access to elected office across the region.

This article is adapted from “Too young to run, old enough to protest: West Africa’s unfinished democratic bargain” published by Global Voices, licensed under CC BY 3.0. Changes were made. Read the original story at the link above.

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