As Nigeria moves into another election season, campaigns have officially started, political parties and politicians prepare for rallies, meetings, consultations and other activities that will dominate public spaces in the months ahead. Across communities, politicians will look for supporters, volunteers and large crowds to demonstrate their popularity.
But there’s one group that should never be used to create those crowds: school-age children. A political campaign is an adult activity. A child who hasn’t reached the legal voting age shouldn’t be recruited, transported, paid or mobilised to attend a political rally simply because his or her presence will make the crowd appear larger. Children have a different place in the society. They should be in classrooms, learning centres, homes and other safe environments where they can develop the knowledge and skills they need for adulthood.
This issue deserves particular attention because many of the children easily mobilised for political activities are not enjoying normal childhood. They are often children living at the margins of the society: those who have dropped out of school, those who have never attended school, orphans, almajirai, children working as scavengers or babanbola, children who work as yan jagora or accompany their parents, those living or working in the streets and children from families experiencing extreme poverty.
These children need strong protection from exploitation. Nigeria already has a serious education crisis with more than 20 million out-of-school children, while education deprivation is particularly severe in northern Nigeria.
A boy spends his day collecting plastic and metal from refuse because his family needs the money, while another accompanies his parent as a guide from street to street, soliciting alms.
There’s the almajirai child who spends much of the day outside the protection of a formal education system. There’s the orphan who depends on relatives or strangers for survival, or a child who dropped out of school because his parents couldn’t afford to educate him anymore. There is also the child who hasn’t ever been in a classroom.
For such children, political rallies can become an opportunity for food, money, transportation or other incentives. That’s precisely why adults must be careful. Poverty can make a child vulnerable to manipulation. When a child attends a political rally because someone paid him to be there, we should not celebrate the size of the crowd. We should ask why that child is available to be recruited in the first place.
Crowded roads, uncontrolled movement of vehicles, fights, stampedes, political violence and other forms of disorder can turn a political event into a dangerous environment for children. Young people can also become vulnerable to manipulation, substance abuse and recruitment into violent activities when political mobilisation is poorly controlled.
A child can learn about democracy without becoming part of a campaign crowd. A child can learn about elections without carrying a political poster. A child can learn about citizenship without being transported from one rally to another. In fact, one of the best ways to prepare children for democracy is to educate them, give them the opportunity to read, teach them how government works, teach them about their rights and responsibilities, teach them how to ask questions and evaluate information. Most importantly, teach them that democracy is more than dancing at rallies, carrying flags or shouting slogans.
The irony is that politicians may spend millions of naira organising rallies while millions of Nigerian children remain outside school. UNICEF’s recent reporting continues to show that millions of children lack access to basic education, health care, protection and other essentials. In its 2025 report on Nigerian children, the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) noted that two out of every three Nigerian children lived in multidimensional poverty.
Nigeria does not need a generation of children trained to shout political slogans while their education is neglected. We need a generation trained to think, read, create, innovate, work and lead. Our politicians should, therefore, campaign for the future of Nigerian children, not with their vulnerability. A political rally lasts a few hours. A child’s education can shape an entire lifetime.
Let us protect, educate and prepare the child for the Nigeria we hope to build.
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