The election season is upon us in Nigeria and there is a lot of politicking going on at the moment.

With all the hype around it, there is a lot of anticipation in the air about what the likely outcome would be and who will end up as our president in Aso Rock.

A keen observation that I have made throughout this period is that once again the political stage has been monopolised by the same band of Grandees that have been in power one way or the other throughout the history of our country.

To me the electioneering has been pretty pedestrian and there is still no concrete evidence of how they are likely to resolve the various problems besieging the country.

In all this, the young people of Nigeria are most notably absent from the list of incoming politicians, the heavy campaigning and the electoral spending spree that is going on right now.

Except for the political thugs, assassins and e-warriors, young Nigerians do not seem to be full participants in the election process and yet we make up the majority of people that are likely to be most affected by the fallout of the policies, actions or inactions of the 2015 poll winner.

So as a concerned citizen who has an opportunistic view of the world, I want to point out a number of ways that the young ones can participate , make money and benefit from the countless opportunities that abound during this election season instead of working as hired thugs or thankless e-warriors.

You can charge whatever fees are most appropriate based on an hourly rate that is fair to all parties and then bill accordingly for hours worked.

There are a long list of likely customers across all political parties such as Local councillors, House of Representatives and Senatorial candidates at state and federal levels, Governorship aspirants even up to the Presidential candidates if you can find a way to market to them.

Twitter, Facebook and google will serve as useful marketing tools for making contact with them.


· Become a Speechwriter:

Help all these political Grandees to communicate more effectively by writing professional speeches for them.

You can also help with coaching them on effective communications, body language, pitch and tone as well as non-verbal cues in addition to helping them create winning and persuasive speeches and arguments.

Lets face it, they need our help to articulate winning ideas for national development and we need their money. So if you have the talent and the access to these people then please do the needful and you could even nab yourself a permanent job after the elections are over.


· Become a Manifesto Consultant:

This is particularly suitable for all the political commentators that abound on various internet platforms like Nairaland and Premium Times. A lot of these young people are offering free and often unsolicited advise on how best they think the incumbent as well as the opposition government can tackle the numerous problems of corruption, boko haram, the economy, health care, infrastructure and power development.

If you have concrete and sound ideas why not think of monetising them by creating a well articulated manifesto that is based on existing and available data with a clear road map of how and when such plans can be implemented using realistic projected framework, budget and resource estimates as well as the operational break down for transitioning the idea successfully to real life.

Trust me you can hammer well and even get a retainer-ship contract from one of these parties because we are still being sold on ideas that are basically elementary level promissory notes as manifesto by all the political parties; most of which have not been substantiated and backed up by rigorous , robust facts and figures.

· Become a Pollster:

we know there have been series of polls being touted here and there with different statistics about the elections and the likely winner.

Why not take the data generated from such polls and create the next level of intelligence, insight and superior argument based on the feelers from the man on the ground?.

Can you interview a focus group of Nigerians and make deductions from the interview on voting patterns by neighbourhoods / wards, local governments, states or geo-political areas?

Can you rate and predict the likely voting outcomes by gender, age groups, professional grouping, low, middle or upper income earners, public and private / business sector groups etc.?

Can you use all information collated to generate heat maps and create even more buzz around the electioneering process? You could sell this packaged information to media outlets for more income.


· Become an image maker:

Let’s face it some of our government officials and politicians need our help with how they portray themselves through various media platforms and in person. Some of them (I won’t mention names) are so garrulous they end up quarrelling with members of the public on twitter and Facebook for the whole world to ridicule us. All these people are so-called elders seeking to lead us and yet they can not conduct themselves in a civilized manner that befits their age and status.

They are helping to aggravate the already checkered and negative impression the world has of Nigerians and Nigeria being run by incompetent and immature people.

Please any young person that has the talent in this area will be doing a patriotic duty by helping such people to project the right image at all times in their communication style, language used and physical presentation (e.g. no shouting at your constituents) especially when in the public domain where it is often difficult to undo the damage of unguarded utterances.


· Become a Political analyst and Policy advisor:

There is an excellent opportunity for a lot of young ones to become political commentators as the electioneering continues.

Start analysing and dissecting the likely impacts of manifesto policies on say the national budget, inflation, economy, security, community welfare, business, exchange rate, foreign relations and so on.

You can also critically assess the performance of political candidates as they make the rounds of media outlets e.g. Candidates Interviews on Channels TV, CNN, Aljazeera and so on. Also you can offer alternative suggestions on how they could have handled a certain interview question to get the most benefit from the platform in promoting their candidacy.

Advise political jobbers where you can, on people friendly policies e.g. there are significant gaps on the knowledge driven economy and ICT policies for the younger generation meanwhile the global trend from leading countries is that this is the next area of major economic boom for them. However throughout the national debate and discourse for the next election not a lot is being said about this.

Rather people are still touting Agricultural Revolution and Resource Exploitation as the magic pill and solution to our economic woes. Although these points are valid, it was probably the solution thirty years ago but the world has moved on since then and many countries are now looking at technological advancement and renewable alternatives as the next frontier for economic empowerment and dominance.


Feel free to contact us on this blog if you need help setting up a viable platform to execute on all of the above suggestions.

Source: http://naijalondoner..co.uk/2015/02/five-ways-young-nigerians-can-make.html

Good one op. Keep it up ok