Ogun State does not lack young people. It lacks a system that treats them as partners in shaping their own future rather than as an audience to be counted, celebrated, and occasionally applauded. The next government will inherit a state full of students refining ideas, entrepreneurs creating jobs in silence, and vocational trainees holding skills that could become enterprises. We are not in a season when we ask whether these young people exist. It is whether anyone in power is willing and prepared to build the institutions that let young people sit at the table where decisions about their lives are made and whether those seats come with real influence, not just mere ceremonial invitations.
That is the test that will separate a governor who merely manages his youth from the one who genuinely invests deeply in the young people. The state is alive with young people moving in different directions. A student in Abeokuta may be refining an idea that could solve a problem in Ijebu-Ode. A young entrepreneur in Sagamu may already be creating jobs without anyone in government noticing. An Artisan in Yewa may hold a skill that, with the right support, could grow into a thriving enterprise.
The challenge is more than rarely discovering that young people exist.
The harder task is building a system capable of listening to them and acting on what has been heard, because there is always a thin line between planning and implementation.
Ogun could begin with something simple by bringing its young people into one room not for a political rally which has always been the case let turn the table around, bring them together for a conversation that produces consequences. A Statewide Youth Conference and Symposium could become an annual institution where young people from every sector engage policymakers directly. It must never become another event of speeches, photographs, and certificates that mean nothing the morning after.
Its true value will be measured only after the microphones are switched off.
What recommendations emerged?
Which ministry received them?
Which ones were seriously considered?
What actually changed because young people spoke?
That is the difference between consultation and participation.
The same platform could also deliver something long overdue: recognition.
Not every young Ogun resident who deserves to be celebrated carries a political surname, commands a large social-media following, or moves in government circles. An annual Government Excellence Youth Awards could deliberately look beyond the familiar names and honour those making measurable contributions in innovation, social enterprise, public service, and academics across the local government areas.
Recognition is more than an award.
It is a public signal that a young person’s work is seen.
Listening and celebrating, however, are not enough.
Ogun needs a standing structure through which young people can continue to advise government long after the conference ends.
An Inter-Institutional Youth Advisory Committee drawing representatives from universities, polytechnics, secondary schools, and vocational centres without exception could fill that role. Its legitimacy would depend entirely on the power it is given.
The committee must not exist merely because members have been appointed.
Let them research.
Let them consult their peers.
Let them scrutinise policies that affect young people.
Let them publish evidence-based policy papers after every major summit and transmit those recommendations straight to the ministries responsible for action.
An opinion backed by evidence carries far more force than one that is not.
Ogun must also think beyond the next election cycle and deliberately build leadership pipelines.
Leadership does not appear the day an appointment letter is signed. It is cultivated over time.
Programmes such as the Kashim Ibrahim Fellows and the Lateef Jakande Leadership Academy show how young people can be systematically exposed to public policy, governance, mentorship, and executive decision-making. Ogun can design its own institutional fellowship selecting promising young people from varied backgrounds and placing them inside the machinery of government.
Imagine a recent graduate watching a ministry shape policy from the inside.
Imagine another learning how budgets are actually made.
Imagine another sitting with seasoned administrators and discovering why some ideas succeed while others die in files.
Years later, some of those fellows will become civil servants, entrepreneurs, legislators, policy experts, or governors. When they do, they will not be learning governance for the first time.
One final ingredient will decide whether any of these ideas outlive a single administration: independence.
Youth development must not rise and fall with political loyalty.
A Non-Partisan Advisory Council comprising credible citizens, NGOs, elder statesmen, professionals, and sector leaders could supply the institutional memory and independent scrutiny that programmes so often lack. Its duty would be to advise, monitor, and ask the difficult questions.
Not every government needs more people who declare, “Your Excellency, everything is perfect.”
Sometimes government needs people prepared to say, with respect, “This is not working.”
That counsel is not opposition.
It is governance.
The council could track whether youth policies are implemented, whether resources deliver results, and whether successful programmes survive changes in political leadership.
The real tragedy would not be Ogun’s failure to launch another youth programme.
The real tragedy would be creating good programmes without the institutions strong enough to keep them alive.
Aspiration is no longer enough.
The next government of Ogun must not merely nod to these ideas in a campaign manifesto or an inaugural speech. It must commit to them. Within its first year it should establish the statewide youth conference, constitute the inter-institutional advisory committee, design a transparent leadership fellowship, and create the non-partisan advisory council. These bodies must not exist by executive announcement alone. Their mandates must be clear, their membership transparent, their responsibilities measurable, and their reports public.
Above all, the young people of Ogun must be able to ask, year after year:
What did government promise?
What has been delivered?
What remains outstanding?
And why?
That is the accountability this moment demands.
Leaders seeking the mandate of Ogun’s people should be pressed to tell the public not only what they intend to do for young people, but what they intend to build with them. Young people, in turn, must demand more than appointments, handouts, and campaign appearances. They must demand institutions, measurable commitments, and a genuine place in the policy process.
Civil society, professional bodies, educational institutions, and the private sector must refuse to let the conversation fade once the election is over.
Youth development cannot be left solely to government.
It requires citizens who keep asking questions.
It requires institutions that keep records.
It requires young people who keep showing up.
And it requires leaders who understand that the most consequential youth policy is not the one that generates the loudest headline today, but the one that produces capable citizens ten, twenty, and thirty years from now. To whoever will occupy Government House in the next chapter of Ogun’s story, the challenge is clear:
Do not simply promise the youth a future.
Give them a mechanism to help build it.
Create the platforms.
Institutionalise the dialogue.
Open the leadership pipeline.
Protect the process from partisan capture.
Publish the results.
Then let Ogun’s young people judge the government not by how often they were invited to clap, but by how often they were invited to contribute and by what government actually did with that contribution. The next generation is not asking for a ceremonial seat at the table. It is asking whether the table was ever designed with them in mind.
