Zambia's president ran for presidency 6 times.

He only won the 6th time because young Zambians voted in MASSIVE numbers and beat the incumbent, Edgar Lungu.

Why did young Zambians decide enough was enough, mobilized and galvanized to vote Lungu out?

Because they were upset.

They were upset about human rights. Zambia has high cases of Police Brutality, frivolous arrests, and crackdowns on Free Speech.

They were upset about the unemployment. Last year, unemployment was at 12%. And Zambians felt this was unacceptable. 12! For context, Nigeria’s unemployment rate at the end of last year was 33.3%. That’s almost THREE times the Zambia rate, which Zambians refused to tolerate.

Young Zambians were also upset about the exchange rate. They felt that their currency, the Kwacha had dropped too far and too fast under the former administration.

And so, because of all these problems, young Zambians decided enough was enough, and they mobilized and galvanized to vote Lungu out. And Hichilema capitalized on that, and ended up with 59% of the votes.

Now this isn’t the only example we’ve seen of young people making a political difference in Africa recently.

In Sudan we saw unemployed young people and young doctors at the center of the movement that brought down the Bashir regime.

We’ve seen young people in eSwatini protest against the anti-democratic tendencies of the monarchy.

In Ivory Coast, young people were in the streets resisting what they see as President Ouattara’s plans to become a dictator

With Nigeria's young people appearing to ride hard for Peter Obi, are we seeing a trend where young Africans are slowly starting to take their place as political influencers and decision-makers?

Are they slowly taking the continent’s destiny into their hands?

Africa is gripped by unemployment and poverty.

And the young people are the hardest hit by it. And the thing with poverty is, it makes it harder to express your political will.

Politics and mobilization cost money, no matter where you are in the World. So for the longest time, people just assumed that young Africans would NOT be a factor in politics.

But now, we’re seeing something different. Or at least we seem to be.

Are young Africans stepping up?

Credit: Sandra Ezekwesili