Chain Reactions Africa, led by Managing Director and Chief Strategist Israel Opayemi and Executive Vice President, Strategy and Innovation Franklin Ozekhome, has urged Nigerian political leaders and government institutions to pay closer attention to changing youth behaviour and expectations ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The call was made on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, at the Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, during the presentation of the firm’s fourth youth trends and culture intelligence report, Youth Futures 2026: A Culture Intelligence Report on African Youth.
Also read:NNPC announces ₦66 fuel discount for customers nationwide
The presentation brought together young Nigerians, creatives, culture-shapers, marketing professionals, government representatives and other thought leaders to examine the cultural and behavioural changes influencing the country’s younger population.
At the centre of the report is a changing relationship between young Nigerians and institutions.
Chain Reactions Africa argues that many young people are increasingly evaluating leadership through visible performance, responsiveness and accountability rather than through campaign messaging alone.
The firm’s position comes against the backdrop of a large youth presence in Nigeria’s electoral register.
Independent National Electoral Commission data shows that 37,060,399 registered voters aged 18 to 34 accounted for 39.65 per cent of the 93,469,008 registered voters in the 2023 general election.
That figure describes the 2023 register, not the electorate for 2027, and does not establish how young Nigerians will vote.
It nevertheless provides context for why youth attitudes and participation remain an important subject for political and civic actors as the next general election approaches.
Opayemi said young Nigerians should no longer be viewed simply as a constituency to be approached during election campaigns.
He argued that their everyday experiences increasingly influence how they assess leadership, institutions and public life.
“Institutions do not earn trust by asking for it any longer. Rather, they earn it by doing the thing they were supposed to do or promised to do and being held accountable when they fail,” Opayemi said.
He also pointed to a growing gap between the speed at which youth culture changes and the pace at which institutions respond.
In his assessment, culture can move within hours and days, while institutional responses often take considerably longer.
For Opayemi, that gap makes cultural intelligence relevant not only to political communication but also to public policy and business decision-making.
He urged institutions to understand emerging behaviour before problems develop rather than commissioning research only after a disconnect has become visible.
The report also revisits the significance of the #EndSARS protests in shaping how some young Nigerians relate to the state.
Opayemi said the experience had altered the relationship between a generation of Nigerians and government, arguing that scepticism could not be addressed through messaging alone but through demonstrable change.
Ozekhome offered another dimension to the findings, arguing that declining institutional trust does not necessarily mean young Nigerians have abandoned the idea of collective progress.
He said trust can be rebuilt when institutions demonstrate competence, responsiveness and accountability.
Among the examples he cited were improvements in digital tax processes, visible infrastructure delivery and government agencies resolving public complaints.
“Legitimacy is now a function of demonstrated competence and accountability,” Ozekhome said.
He identified youth employment, mental health infrastructure, digital rights and online safety, and the creative economy as areas where policy responses need to better reflect the realities of younger Nigerians.
Ozekhome also described the relationship between young people and authority through four contrasting phrases: “Intimacy Without Trust, Visibility Without Safety, Belief Without Institutions and Mobility Without Arrival.”
The formulation reflects a generation that is highly connected digitally but does not necessarily extend the same level of confidence to traditional institutions.
That tension is particularly important in Nigeria’s online environment.
Young Nigerians have used digital platforms to organise, build communities, express political views and amplify social issues, but the same networks can also facilitate misinformation and coordinated disinformation.
Ozekhome therefore cautioned against assuming that youth culture is inherently uniform or that digital visibility automatically translates into public trust.
He stressed that socioeconomic and geographical circumstances shape how young people perceive institutions and brands.
“Lagos is not Nigeria,” he said, pointing to differences in the experiences of young people in cities such as Kano, Enugu, Port Harcourt and Ibadan.
The observation adds an important qualification to broad youth statistics.
Age can identify a demographic group, but it does not by itself explain its political priorities, economic circumstances or cultural outlook.
The report’s wider argument is therefore less about young Nigerians acting as one electoral bloc and more about the changing standards through which many young people assess institutions.
That distinction matters for political actors preparing for 2027.
While the report draws attention to youth participation and expectations, the available voter data cannot be used to determine how the demographic will vote or whether it will participate at any particular level in the next election.
INEC’s official 2023 data shows that youth aged 18 to 34 were the largest single age category among registered voters, followed by voters aged 35 to 49, who accounted for 35.75 per cent.
Together, those two groups represented more than three-quarters of the registered electorate in 2023.
The political significance of younger Nigerians therefore extends beyond campaign advertising.
Their concerns around jobs, economic opportunity, digital freedoms, safety, public services and institutional accountability also intersect with broader questions about governance.
For Chain Reactions Africa, understanding those concerns requires more than demographic segmentation.
The firm is advocating what it describes as cultural intelligence, with institutions expected to observe how social behaviour is changing and incorporate those insights into policy, communication and decision-making.
The report’s presentation consequently placed a strong emphasis on listening before communicating, demonstrating delivery before seeking trust and recognising young Nigerians as participants in shaping the country’s future rather than simply an audience for political messages.
As preparations for the 2027 elections develop, the report provides one perspective on the expectations and frustrations influencing parts of Nigeria’s youth population.
Also read:NNPC announces ₦66 fuel discount for customers nationwide
Its findings do not determine the choices young voters will make, but they underline the importance of understanding the social and institutional experiences behind the numbers.
