One of Africa’s leading public relations and communications consulting firms, Chain Reactions Africa, has urged Nigerian politicians and government institutions to pay closer attention to evolving youth behaviour, saying young Nigerians will play a significant role in shaping the 2027 general elections and the country’s trajectory.
The firm said understanding young people had become increasingly important as their experiences continue to reshape expectations of leadership, institutions and public life.
Chain Reactions Africa made the call on Wednesday, September 30, during the public presentation of its periodic youth trends and culture intelligence report, titled ‘Youth Futures 2026: A Culture Intelligence Report on African Youth,’ held at the Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos.
The event brought together young Nigerians, creatives, culture-shapers, marketing professionals, government representatives and thought leaders.
The report was produced by strategists, trend spotters, cultural anthropologists and industry experts working across brands, business and youth culture in Africa.
According to the firm, the contributors combined cultural insight, strategic analysis and practical industry experience to examine the trends and decisions shaping the next generation.
Speaking at the event, Managing Director and Chief Strategist of Chain Reactions Africa, Israel Opayemi, urged political leaders and government institutions at all levels to study and understand the report.
Opayemi said young Nigerians could no longer be treated merely as a constituency to be courted during election periods, but as a generation whose lived experiences increasingly influence how power and institutions are judged.
‘Young people are not simply the audience of the future; they are already living through the future that the rest of society is only beginning to understand.
‘Their choices around work, migration, identity, technology, relationships, and meaning are not isolated youth behaviours. They are signals of where society itself is heading,’ he said.
Opayemi said the report provided an opportunity to understand those signals rather than speak on behalf of young people.
He also highlighted the size of the youth voting population ahead of the 2027 elections, citing Independent National Electoral Commission data showing that Nigerians aged 18 to 34 accounted for 37,060,399 of the 93,469,008 registered voters in the 2023 general election, representing 39.65 per cent.
He said the figure underscored the importance of understanding young voters, particularly if they participate in significant numbers in the 2027 elections.
According to Opayemi, a central finding of the report was that young Nigerians had not abandoned the idea of governance but had become increasingly sceptical of institutions they perceived as having failed them.
‘Young Nigerians have not given up on governance; they have given up on the specific institutions that have consistently failed them,’ he said.
He said the report found that self-trust and peer trust remained relatively strong among young people, followed by community trust, while institutional trust represented the weakest layer.
Opayemi said institutional trust would have to be earned through demonstrable performance and accountability rather than assumed.
‘Nigerian youths now trust based on proofs,’ he said, adding that institutions could no longer expect young people to trust them simply because they asked for it.
He also warned of what he described as a widening gap between the speed at which culture evolves and the pace at which institutions respond.
‘Culture now moves in hours and days, brands respond in weeks and months, and government policy in months and years,’ he said.
He advocated the integration of cultural intelligence into business decisions and public policymaking rather than relying on reports commissioned after problems had already emerged.
Opayemi also referenced the #EndSARS protests, saying the movement had altered how a generation of young Nigerians relates to the state.
He argued that the scepticism among young people who became politically engaged through the experience could only be addressed through demonstrable changes in governance.
Also speaking, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Innovation at Chain Reactions Africa, Franklin Ozekhome, said the report showed that trust could still be rebuilt.
He cited the digitisation of tax processes by the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), visible infrastructure delivered by some state governments and government agencies that had responded to public complaints with tangible solutions as examples of actions capable of restoring confidence in institutions.
‘Legitimacy is now a function of demonstrated competence and accountability,’ Ozekhome said.
He identified four areas where he said the gap between youth realities and policy responses was particularly consequential: employment policies designed around formal jobs that many young Nigerians may never hold, mental health infrastructure, digital rights and online safety, and policies for the creative economy.
Ozekhome said young people were not merely participants in the economy but were also influencing the evolution of industries, the formation of communities and the spread of culture.
He described what he called four paradoxes shaping young Nigerians’ relationship with authority as ‘Intimacy Without Trust, Visibility Without Safety, Belief Without Institutions and Mobility Without Arrival.’
According to him, belief was increasingly being formed outside traditional institutions such as churches, governments and formal organisations, while mobility did not necessarily guarantee progress.
Ozekhome also cautioned political actors against exploiting youth culture and digital platforms for negative narratives and disinformation.
He said political actors were increasingly adopting the aesthetics of youth culture but warned that the same digital infrastructure that facilitated mobilisation during #EndSARS could also be used to coordinate disinformation.
‘The tools of power are not exclusively in good hands,’ he said.
He further warned businesses and political leaders against treating Nigerian youths as a homogeneous group.
‘Lagos is not Nigeria. Life’s condition, not age, is the variable that matters most,’ Ozekhome said, noting that young people in Kano, Enugu, Port Harcourt and Ibadan have different experiences, priorities and decision-making frameworks.
He said campaigns based solely on visibility would not necessarily translate into trust or belief among young Nigerians.
The report’s central message for political and business leaders was the need to understand young Nigerians through their lived experiences, rather than relying on broad assumptions about age.
It called for leaders and institutions to listen to young people, demonstrate results before demanding trust and recognise them as active participants in shaping Nigeria’s future.