ABUJA, Nigeria — Alex Ibeh, a Nigerian musician and the latest youth ambassador of the Independent National Electoral Commission, has called on young Nigerians to stop being bystanders and become active shapers of the country’s electoral future. Ibeh, known on the entertainment and advocacy circuit as Kool’, spoke on Friday on the sidelines of the investiture of INEC youth ambassadors in Abuja, where he received his formal appointment. Using a vivid domestic analogy, he insisted that meaningful change would not come from detached criticism. “You cannot clean a room thoroughly from the window; you must go inside,” he told his audience. “It is important that the youth know that they have to participate in the electoral process. You don’t have to be a politician to do so.” The statement comes at a time when Nigeria’s youthful population is both the country’s greatest potential force and its most disenchanted constituency. Many young Nigerians have chosen protest over ballot, or disengagement over both. Mr Ibeh’s remarks were aimed directly at that estrangement. He argued that while the political system is imperfect, it is not immovable, and that those who care about the country’s direction cannot afford to remain purely spectators. “It might look bleak now,” he said, “but things could get better with everyone’s participation. But standing afar and criticising or complaining would not make things happen.” His words constituted not only an appeal but an internal challenge to youth: if the country is not working for them, they must be willing to enter the space where decisions are made and contest for its future.
Mr Ibeh was careful to separate electoral participation from partisan ambition. Young Nigerians, he insisted, could influence the political system without necessarily being a candidate, a party member, or a political appointee. Registering to vote, turning out on election day, witnessing the conduct of officials, volunteering as polling agents, monitoring vote counting, holding town hall dialogues, and exposing malpractices are all forms of citizenship that require no party card. In a polity where a large share of young people view politics as the exclusive preserve of an older, wealthier class, this broader definition of participation is itself a challenge. It asks young people to recognize that they are already political actors, whether or not they accept the label, and that their choice to participate or abstain has consequences. If the electoral system is corrupt, he suggested, the answer is not to leave it to the corrupt but to occupy it with the committed. He also rejected the idea that one person’s vote is meaningless. The same people who propagate such hopelessness, he argued, are often those who spend the most resources trying to determine the use of each ballot. “The same people who tell you that your votes will not count are the same people who are buying your votes,” he said, in what would become one of the most striking lines of his address. The logic is simple: if votes truly have no effect, there would be no market for purchasing them. The fact that they are bought and sold proves they matter. For Mr Ibeh, the apathy of the young is not a sign of futility but a failure of perception. “Whatever we want is in our hands, and we can make that change if we want,” he repeated, making clear that the revolution begins not with a rally or a hashtag but with a decision to treat the ballot as the most potent instrument available.
A significant portion of Mr Ibeh’s intervention addressed the institutional distrust that has made young Nigerians skeptical of elections themselves. He acknowledged that working with INEC can be a thankless assignment, especially in a country where the electoral commission is regularly accused of partiality, opacity, and logistical failure. “INEC’s job is a thankless job, so to say. No matter how you do it, it’s going to seem like you are here or you are there,” he conceded. “That mistrust is there, and INEC needs to do a lot of work to bring back the trust of the youth.” The admission is striking because it comes from an insider, someone chosen by the commission to serve as a bridge to younger Nigerians. Instead of pretending that the electoral system is beyond reproach, he called on the commission to face the dissatisfaction directly. At the same time, he reminded his youthful audience that INEC alone cannot guarantee the integrity of an election. Trust must be earned, but it is also built when citizens show up and test the system. In a country where the population is overwhelmingly young, the electoral fortunes of parties and candidates depend on how that generation registers, votes, and makes political demands. “This is because young people make up the largest segment of the population; they ultimately determine which direction things go in Nigeria,” he said. That statement carries a warning as much as an empowerment: if young people decide that their voices are worthless and stay away, they effectively cede the direction of the country to a minority. But if they decide to participate en masse, they can reshape the political order. Mr Ibeh’s role, he explained, is to make sure the commission hears young people’s complaints and that young people also hear what the commission is doing to address them. He wants to transform what is often a relationship of suspicion into a relationship of mutual accountability.
Mr Ibeh’s sharpest warning was saved for the cynical manipulation that surrounds Nigerian elections, particularly the practice of vote-buying. He urged young people to resist the temptation to take money from politicians and to recognize that the billions spent on vote-buying are evidence of the power they hold collectively. “The same people who tell you that your votes will not count are the same people who are buying your votes. So you need to be wiser and understand that you shouldn’t fall for their tricks,” he said. “Whatever we want is in our hands, and we can make that change if we want.” In many communities across Nigeria, vote-buying is not an abstract scandal but a daily reality. Party agents set up stalls near polling units, hand out cash, food, or other inducements, and expect voters to cast their ballots according to instructions. The amounts involved are often trivial compared to the budgets ploughed into campaigns, yet they are enough to exploit the vulnerability of citizens who have been told for years that their votes are worthless. Mr Ibeh’s message was that this market is built on a lie. If a ballot can be bought for a few thousand naira, its face value to the buyer is far higher; the politicians know that votes determine power, and they are willing to pay for it. By refusing to sell, young voters can break the oldest trick in the Nigerian political playbook. He also highlighted the psychological dimension of voter disenfranchisement: after years of hearing that nothing will change, many young people no longer believe in the efficacy of their own participation. But their belief, he argued, is the only thing that prevents the system from being transformed. “You need to be wiser and understand that you shouldn’t fall for their tricks,” he insisted, linking resistance to vote-buying with the courage to reject internalized pessimism, and adding that any change Nigeria desires begins with a decision to stop being duped.
The INEC youth ambassador also turned his attention to the role of fake news and misinformation in undermining democracy. He acknowledged that social media platforms are flooded with both real and fabricated stories, and that this is not a problem unique to Nigeria. But he insisted that citizens, especially young people, must treat election-related information with a much higher level of scrutiny. “We can’t stop real and fake news on social media; it’s a worldwide issue. When it comes to your country or anything important to you, it’s vital that you verify whatever information you get,” Mr Ibeh said. “Don’t just swallow whatever you hear or whatever is trending as popular opinion. It is important for you to do your own research.” His advice goes to the heart of a growing crisis in which disinformation is used as a weapon to inflame ethnic and religious tensions, to undermine the credibility of credible candidates, to spread panic about election-day logistics, and to create plausible excuses for nullifying or declaring disputed results. In the age of cheap data and continuous notifications, a false claim can travel from a small social media group to the national conversation in a matter of hours. Mr Ibeh suggested that the most effective antidote is not regulation or censorship, which he described as nearly impossible, but individual vigilance. Before sharing a post, he said, a young Nigerian should ask where it came from, whether the source is credible, whether the claim has been confirmed by multiple outlets, and whether it is too outlandish to be true. Doing one’s own research may sound like a burden, but it is a form of political power. It prevents manipulation from succeeding. He pledged to be part of the solution by using his platform and personal interactions to spread verified election information and to challenge lies whenever they surface. “It doesn’t have to be only when you’re on social media; when you meet people in conversations, everything drives home the point that, look, whatever we want is in our hands,” he said.
As he accepted the mantle of youth ambassador, Mr Ibeh made clear that his work will extend beyond carefully staged online engagement. He promised to leverage his social media presence, his music, his celebrity status, and ordinary conversations to promote voter education and carry a message of hope to young Nigerians across the country. “It doesn’t have to be only when you’re on social media, when you meet people in conversations; everything drives home the point that, look, whatever we want is in our hands. We can make that change if we want,” he said. He also said he will serve as a link between INEC and the people, delivering the concerns of the young to the commission and carrying the commission’s responses back to the grassroots. That bridging function is essential in a country where the electoral body is often perceived as distant, defensive, and unresponsive. By committing to bring the people’s questions and dissents directly to INEC, Mr Ibeh offers a model of activism that is neither co-opted nor antagonistic but engaged. He did not pretend that the work ahead is easy; he acknowledged that the electoral umpire is caught in a storm of distrust and that no amount of reform will instantly erase decades of negative experiences. Yet he insisted that the alternative to trying is worse. “You cannot clean a room thoroughly from the window; you must go inside,” he had said, and he repeated that he intends to be inside, not merely as a celebrity endorser of the electoral process, but as a listener, a learner, and a convener. His overall message to young Nigerians is clear: stop waiting for someone else to fix the country. Register to vote. Show up on election day. Refuse to sell your ballot. Check facts before sharing them. Hold politicians accountable. This generation has the numerical strength, the communication tools, and the moral interest to change the course of the country. The only missing ingredient is the collective decision to act. “Whatever we want is in our hands, and we can make that change if we want,” he repeated. For a country whose young people have too often been dismissed or manipulated, that is not just a slogan; it is a challenge.
