Report of Activities · UN International Youth Day 2024
Le pacte de confiance : la jeunesse, la légitimité et l'avenir de la sécurité nationale au Nigeria
The report of activities of the UNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit, convened jointly by UNESCO REF and the Nigeria Police Force on 12 August 2024 at the NPF Resource Centre, Jabi, Abuja, to mark the United Nations International Youth Day. Held eleven days after the #EndBadGovernance protests began, the Summit brought the Inspector-General of Police, the Honourable Minister of Police Affairs and the Presidency, represented by the Honourable Minister of Youth Development, into structured dialogue with more than four hundred young delegates drawn from the six geopolitical zones of the federation. Two scholarly papers of UNESCO REF accompany the record.
Theme of the Summit Enhancing the Nigerian Youth's Value for National Security Intelligence Read the reportRead the two papersSpecial Report: The Needful Now▶ Watch the broadcastUNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit, NPF Resource Centre, Abuja, 12 August 2024. Delegates, officers of the Nigeria Police Force and principal guests in session on UN International Youth Day. Photograph: UNESCO REF Media Centre / Nigeria Police Force.
12 Aug 2024, UN International Youth Day, Abuja 400+ Youth delegates, officials and civil society leaders 06 Geopolitical zones represented by youth delegates 4 Pillars of a youth and security compact Document Report of activities Event UNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit Venue NPF Resource Centre, Jabi, Abuja Convened by UNESCO REF and the Nigeria Police Force Broadcast Live on Channels Television, watch now Special Report The Needful Now: Nigeria's Youth, Security, and the Covenant of August 2024. The full lead investigation behind this Summit. Read the investigation →I · The Presidency
Le Président de la République fédérale du Nigeria a honoré l'invitation
12 VIII 2024In the name of the Office of the President
His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR
President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
Represented at the Summit by Dr Jamila Bio Ibrahim , Honourable Minister of Youth Development, who delivered the address of the President at the close of proceedings
The address of the President · 17:00
Un message de la plus haute fonction de l'État à la jeunesse du Nigeria
The presence of the Presidency gave the Summit its standing. Eleven days after protests in which young Nigerians had called on the government to hear them, the President sent to a hall of more than four hundred young delegates the Minister charged with their development, to speak in his name. The message was carried by its setting as much as by its words: the grievances of the young had been heard at the highest level of the state, and the answer to them would be sought in dialogue, in opportunity and in partnership with the institutions that keep the nation safe.
Delivering the address on behalf of the President, Dr Jamila Bio Ibrahim affirmed the place of young Nigerians at the centre of the Renewed Hope Agenda and set out the youth empowerment programme of the administration. “Our youths are partners of today,” she said, in the words of the President. She listed the Students Loan Scheme and the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, the Youth Investment Fund, the Presidential Initiative for Youth Enterprise Clusters, the National Talent Export Programme, with its aim of one million job opportunities, and the annual recruitment of 30,000 young Nigerians into the Nigeria Police Force, and she commended the Inspector-General for convening the Summit. She called on young people to work with government in building a nation that is not only prosperous but secure and just, and to bring the energy that had filled the streets into the institutions where policy is made.
₦10mVenture funding of up to ten million naira per beneficiary, reorienting the service year toward enterprise.
5,000Enterprises of young graduates earmarked for support under the scheme.
30%The commitment of the Federal Executive Council to the inclusion of young people in appointments.
NYSPThe National Youth Skills Programme and a planned Young Leaders Institute.
La reconnaissance
By sending its message to a youth and security summit, the Presidency recognised young Nigerians as partners in the security of the nation and not as its adversaries.
La réactivité
By speaking within days of the protests, the Presidency signalled that the answer to grievance would be dialogue, and that dialogue would have a seat at the highest table.
La responsabilité
By setting out undertakings in public, the Presidency gave young Nigerians a standard against which the government's commitments can be followed and, in time, measured.
The undertakings above belong to the Federal Government and are reported as presented on the day. Their value to the security of the nation, as the papers accompanying this report argue, will depend less on their scale than on whether young people experience them as fair, reachable and lasting.
On air · Channels Television
Revivez le sommet tel que la nation l'a vu
The UNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit was broadcast live across Nigeria by Channels Television on 12 August 2024. The full broadcast, published by Channels Television under the title "Nigerian Police Summit 2024: Enhancing The Nigerian Youth's Value For National Security Intelligence", records the addresses, the dialogue with the Inspector-General and the proceedings of the day.
Broadcaster Channels Television Date 12 August 2024 Venue NPF Resource Centre, Abuja Also reported by VOA, Arise News, TheCable, ThisDay, Leadership, The Guardian, NAN Watch on YouTubeII · The record of 12 August 2024
Un sommet convoqué à l'heure où il le fallait
On 12 August 2024 the Resource Centre of the Nigeria Police Force at Jabi, Abuja, received a gathering without precedent in the relations between the Nigerian state and its young citizens. The UNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit, convened jointly by UNESCO REF and the Nigeria Police Force to mark the United Nations International Youth Day, placed the Inspector-General of Police, the Honourable Minister of Police Affairs and the representative of the President of the Federal Republic in one hall with more than four hundred young delegates drawn from the six geopolitical zones of the federation.
The timing defined the occasion. Eleven days earlier, on 1 August 2024, young Nigerians had taken to the streets in the #EndBadGovernance protests, the ten days that came to be described as the "Ten Days of Rage". The demonstrations followed fourteen months of economic pressure after the removal of the petrol subsidy in May 2023. They ended in loss of life, in arrests and in a hardening of suspicion between young people and the institutions charged with their security. To convene a summit of youth and police in that hour was to choose dialogue over distance when distance would have been easier.
The theme of the day, Enhancing the Nigerian Youth's Value for National Security Intelligence, stated the Summit's central proposition. National security is not something done to young people or done for them; it is something that cannot be done without them. Their knowledge of place, their networks and their fluency with the instruments of modern communication are national assets. Whether those assets serve the security of the nation depends on whether the institutions of the state earn the trust that allows them to be shared.
This document is the report of activities of that day. It records who spoke and what was said, the order of proceedings, the questions put by young delegates to the Inspector-General and the answers he gave, the four pillars around which the Summit organised its work, and the five recommendations it produced. It closes with the national context in which the Summit was convened. Two scholarly papers of UNESCO REF accompany the record. The first examines the value of the young as a demographic, historical and economic fact; the second examines trust as the condition on which that value becomes security intelligence.
Occasion United Nations International Youth Day 2024 Date Monday, 12 August 2024 Venue Nigeria Police Force Resource Centre, Jabi, Abuja Theme Enhancing the Nigerian Youth's Value for National Security Intelligence Convened by UNESCO REF and the Nigeria Police Force The Presidency Represented by Dr Jamila Bio Ibrahim, Honourable Minister of Youth Development, on behalf of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR Host IGP Kayode Adeolu Egbetokun, Ph.D., NPM, Inspector-General of Police Delegates More than 400, drawn from the six geopolitical zones, including the leadership of the National Youth Council of Nigeria and the National Youth Coalition Coverage Broadcast live on Channels Television; reported by the Voice of America, Arise News, TheCable, The Guardian, ThisDay, Leadership and the News Agency of Nigeria, among other outletsSummary of activities
Résumé des activités de la journée
The activities of the Summit are summarised below in the order in which they took place. Each is reported in full in the section indicated.
| Time | Activity | Led by | Result recorded | Section |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | Opening ceremony and cultural performance | Corps members of the National Youth Service Corps | Traditional dances of four cultural regions presented as an affirmation of unity in diversity | V |
| 10:00 | Keynote address | Inspector-General of Police | Young people framed as partners in national security rather than as potential threats | IV |
| 11:00 | Address of the convening institution | President, UNESCO REF | Young people framed as change agents bridging technology, communication and community | IV |
| 12:00 | Ministerial address | Honourable Minister of Police Affairs | Summit linked to the Renewed Hope Agenda and to a culture of constructive dialogue | IV |
| In session | Keynote of the oversight institution | Chairman, Police Service Commission | The Summit charged to recommend better ways to anticipate emerging issues | IV |
| 14:00 | Guest keynote on trust and the digital frontier of security | Professor Olanrewaju Fagbohun, SAN | The trust gap between security agencies and youth named; the migration of threats to the digital space identified | IV |
| 15:00 | Youth question and answer session | Youth delegates and the Inspector-General | Four questions on protest policing, misconduct, the NLC operation and the protection of farmers answered on the record | VII |
| 16:00 | Interactive thematic sessions | Delegates in four breakout groups | Proposals developed under the four pillars of the Summit | VI |
| 17:00 | Presidential address and close | Minister of Youth Development, on behalf of the President | The youth agenda of the Federal Government set out; the Summit formally closed | I |
| After the Summit | Adoption of recommendations | The convening institutions | Five strategic recommendations recorded for implementation | VIII |
III · Distinguished delegates
Une convergence des institutions de l'État et des voix de la jeunesse
The Summit brought together the principal officers responsible for internal security, the Presidency, the national youth service, the academy and the representatives of the security services and paramilitary organisations. Each office brought a distinct competence: command, policy, youth development, law and the convening architecture of SIP-ALPHA.
Honourable Minister of Youth Development, representing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR
Delivered the address of the President and set out the youth empowerment agenda of the Federal Government.
Ph.D., NPM, Inspector-General of Police, Nigeria Police Force
Host of the Summit. Delivered the keynote and answered the questions of youth delegates on the record.
Honourable Minister of Police Affairs
Placed the Summit within the Renewed Hope Agenda and called for a culture of constructive dialogue.
President, UNESCO REF
Co-convener of the Summit. Framed young Nigerians as change agents in national security.
Former Vice-Chancellor, Lagos State University
Guest keynote on the trust gap between the security agencies and young people, and on the migration of threats to the digital space.
Force Public Relations Officer, Nigeria Police Force (ACP at the time of the Summit; promoted DCP, August 2025)
Concluded the convening of the Summit with UNESCO REF at Louis Edet House and announced it for the Force on 7 August 2024.
Honourable Minister of Information and National Orientation
Addressed the Summit through the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria, Mallam Jibrin Baba Ndace, and called on young Nigerians to work with the President to move the nation to the next level.
President and Chairman of Council, Nigerian Institute of Public Relations
Panel discussant. Called on leaders at every level to earn the trust of young Nigerians.
The National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, sent his goodwill message to the Summit through Major General P. P. Malla, Director of Defence Affairs. The Honourable Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris Malagi, addressed the Summit through the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria, Mallam Jibrin Baba Ndace, who carried his appeal to young Nigerians to work with the President to move the nation to the next level. The President and Chairman of Council of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, Dr Ike Neliaku, served as a panel discussant. The Chairman of the Police Service Commission, DIG Hashimu Argungu (rtd.), the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Police Affairs, Mr James Sule, the presidents and heads of national youth organisations, among them the National Youth Council of Nigeria and the National Youth Coalition, and representatives of the service chiefs and paramilitary organisations were also in attendance. The convergence is itself a finding of the day. Security policy in Nigeria is made across many offices; a dialogue with young people that engages only one of them will reach only part of the problem.
IV · The addresses of the day
Le compte rendu officiel des allocutions des dirigeants
Five principal addresses were delivered in the course of the Summit, in addition to the address of the President recorded in Section I. Read together, they form a single argument developed from five positions. The Inspector-General spoke from command, the President of UNESCO REF from the vision of the convening institution, the Minister of Police Affairs from policy, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission from oversight, and the guest keynote from law and scholarship. Each arrived at the same conclusion: young Nigerians are partners in the security of the nation, and partnership requires trust.
Each address is recorded below in full outline: the setting in which it was delivered, the argument it made, its principal statements and the commitments it placed on the record. Direct quotations are those reported by the UNESCO REF Media Centre and by the national and international press; the remainder is a faithful account of the substance of each address.
IGP Kayode Adeolu Egbetokun Ph.D., NPM Inspector-General of Police, Nigeria Police Force01 · The host
Une police engagée envers les droits, le bien-être et le partenariat des jeunes
This day underscores the importance of empowering youths, amplifying their voices, and ensuring that their contributions are acknowledged and nurtured.
The Inspector-General opened the substantive proceedings as host. He described International Youth Day as more than a celebration: a reminder of the vital role that young people play in their societies and in the wider world, and of the obligation of institutions to empower them. He described the Summit itself as a celebration of the ability of young Nigerians to drive positive change, and the theme of the day as a statement that the strength and future of the nation rest on its youth.
He placed young people at the centre of three national tasks: driving social change, redesigning the national security architecture and advancing sustainable development. The Nigeria Police Force, he said, would continue to harness the energy, creativity and idealism of young people to build a safer, more secure and more prosperous Nigeria, and was committed to creating a secure environment that would empower them. Young Nigerians, in his account, are indispensable partners in national security and development, and the Force sought to support them as leaders of change.
He described the Summit as a platform for dialogue, education and collaboration between the police and the nation's youth, designed to bridge gaps, build trust and enable both to work together on the security of the country, and he expressed confidence that the ideas generated would strengthen national security intelligence. He closed with a charge to all present.
On the recordLet us remain steadfast in our commitment to our youths. Together we must pledge to support, empower and create a brighter future for all.
02 · The convening institution
Les jeunes Nigérians, acteurs du changement et force nationale
Our focus today is on youths recognising themselves as change agents. It is imperative that our young people understand their potential to influence and drive positive change.
The President of UNESCO REF addressed the Summit as co-convener. The address came out of the work that had brought UNESCO REF to the hall: an advocacy tour of the South-West completed two months before the protests, in which young Nigerians had spoken of the pressure of the economic transition, and a working visit to the Force Headquarters at Louis Edet House during the protests themselves, at which the convening of the Summit was concluded with the Force. The Summit was the result of a shared choice to answer a moment of strain with an open hall.
His central argument concerned how young people see themselves. Nigeria's youth, he said, are a valuable national asset, and the first step in realising that value is for young people to recognise their own capacity to influence events and to drive positive change. He located that capacity in what young Nigerians already possess. Their familiarity with technology, social media and contemporary communication tools, he argued, places them in a position to strengthen community policing, to contribute to intelligence gathering and to support the response to crises, bridging the gap between the security institutions and the communities they serve.
The argument belongs to the Strategic Intervention Programme of UNESCO REF, SIP-ALPHA, whose youth pillar holds that Nigeria's challenge is not a lack of skills but a large and capable generation whose talents are under-used, and that the task of national policy is to direct that generation into every sector of national life, security included. UNESCO REF has since carried the work of the day beyond the hall, through its continued partnership with the Nigeria Police Force and through the scholarship published with this report.
On the record03 · The Ministry of Police Affairs
L'engagement des jeunes dans la sécurité nationale n'est pas facultatif
Youth engagement in national security matters is not just beneficial; it is imperative.
The address of the Minister of Police Affairs, read on his behalf by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mr James Sule, set the Summit within the policy of the Federal Government. The Minister observed that the country had recently witnessed a surge in the civic engagement of young people, and that such engagement carries responsibilities as well as rights. He thanked young Nigerians who had heeded the call of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to suspend the protests and accept dialogue, and he extended the condolences of the government to the families of young people who had lost their lives.
He acknowledged that the government had heard those who protested peacefully, while condemning the looting and destruction of public and private property by those who had exploited the protests. The Renewed Hope Agenda, he said, envisages young people not merely as participants but as leaders in national security and development, and he called for a culture of constructive dialogue in which grievance is expressed through discussion rather than destructive action.
The Minister set out the measures by which the government intended to cushion the effects of its economic reforms on young people and their families: the operation of the student loan scheme to widen access to higher education, the approval of a new national minimum wage, the suspension of tariffs on essential food items and medicines, and support for local refining through the sale of crude oil to indigenous refineries in naira. He described the police reform under way as building toward an integrated model of policing with a focus on rural communities, in support of food production and the development of solid minerals, and he pledged that the Ministry of Police Affairs would work with the Ministry of Youth Development in support of the aspirations of young Nigerians.
On the record04 · The oversight institution
Anticiper les enjeux avant qu'ils ne deviennent des crises
The Chairman of the Police Service Commission, the constitutional body responsible for the appointment, promotion and discipline of officers of the Nigeria Police Force below the rank of Inspector-General, also addressed the Summit. His presence brought to the hall the institution through which the conduct of officers is ultimately held to account, a point of direct relevance to the questions on misconduct that delegates later put to the Inspector-General.
The Chairman asked the Summit to look ahead. Its value, he said, would lie in suggesting and recommending better ways for the nation to anticipate emerging issues, so that the security institutions are not always responding to events after they have occurred. He urged participants to think more innovatively about policies and interventions, so that the state could act quickly and appropriately when tensions begin to rise. The charge anticipated the Summit's own recommendations on early warning, continuous dialogue and adaptive partnership.
On the record05 · The guest keynote
Nommer le déficit de confiance et les moyens de le combler
There’s a trust gap in terms of security agencies and the youth.
The guest keynote gave the Summit its most exact diagnosis, and it was carried to an international audience by the Voice of America the same day. Professor Fagbohun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former Vice-Chancellor of Lagos State University, began from a plain statement of the problem: a gap of trust separates the security agencies of Nigeria from the nation’s young people, and no partnership between them can succeed until that gap is acknowledged and addressed.
He then located the problem in the present. The dimension of security threats in Nigeria, he told the Summit, had migrated from the physical to the digital space. The observation joins the two halves of the Summit’s theme. If the threats now live in the digital domain, the citizens most fluent in that domain are the young; a security architecture that distrusts its young people has distrusted its most capable allies in the very space where the threats are found.
From that diagnosis the keynote proceeded to remedy. Professor Fagbohun addressed the importance of youth inclusivity in key areas of national security, of reward systems for youth development and of sponsorship programmes to encourage young people and promote national growth. Trust, on this account, is not requested from young people; it is earned by institutions, through inclusion and conduct that young people can see. The analysis set the frame that both the dialogue of the afternoon and the recommendations of the Summit followed, and it is developed at length in Paper No. 2.
On the recordLecture d'ensemble des allocutions
Every address treated young people as partners in national security. None treated them as a problem to be contained. That consensus, stated in public by command, policy, oversight and scholarship, is itself a finding of the day.
Every address, in its own terms, made partnership conditional on trust: the Inspector-General through rights and welfare, the Minister through dialogue, the Commission through anticipation, the keynote through inclusion.
The addresses created a public record against which the institutions that spoke can be measured. The recommendations in Section VIII translate that record into actions that can be followed and verified.
V · Order of proceedings
Une journée ordonnée avec soin pour un dialogue sincère
09:00
A cultural presentation by corps members of the National Youth Service Corps, setting a tone of unity and collaboration.
10:00 · Keynote
A vision for partnership between the Force and young Nigerians.
11:00 · Convening address
Young people as change agents in national security.
12:00 · Ministerial address
The Renewed Hope Agenda and a culture of constructive dialogue.
14:00 · Guest keynote
Professor Olanrewaju Fagbohun, SAN, on the trust gap and the digital frontier of security.
15:00
Delegates put direct questions to the Inspector-General.
16:00
Breakout groups under the four pillars of the Summit.
17:00 · Close
The address of the President, delivered by the Honourable Minister of Youth Development.
L'ouverture : l'unité dans la diversité
The Summit opened with a performance by corps members of the National Youth Service Corps. In their khaki, the corps members presented the traditional dances of four of Nigeria's cultural regions, an affirmation before any word was spoken that the young people of the federation share one country.
The choice was apt. The National Youth Service Corps was established in 1973, in the aftermath of the civil war, precisely to promote national unity and integration among young graduates. Its presence at the opening of a summit on youth and security joined the oldest national instrument of youth integration to one of the newest forms of youth engagement with the state.
South-South
A flowing dance of the Efik and coastal peoples, representing the heritage of the Niger Delta and the Cross River basin.
South-West
A ceremonial dance of the Yoruba, performed to the drum of the same name.
North Central
A dance of the Tiv people of the Middle Belt, a celebration of community and harvest.
Northern Nigeria
Dignified courtly forms representing the emirate traditions of the north.
VI · The four pillars
Quatre piliers d'un pacte entre la jeunesse et la sécurité
The interactive sessions of the afternoon were organised around four pillars. Each describes a domain in which the knowledge and capacity of young people can strengthen security, and each depends on the trust that the others help to build.
ILa prévention de la criminalité
Proactive, community-based interventions and early warning systems that draw on youth networks and local knowledge, so that threats are identified before they become incidents.
IILa résolution des conflits
Youth-led mediation and de-escalation that use the influence of peers to secure peaceful outcomes in disputes within and between communities.
IIIL'engagement sur les réseaux sociaux
Digital literacy, early detection of incitement and the countering of misinformation, built on the technological fluency of the young and on respect for lawful expression.
IVLa police de proximité
Grassroots partnerships between young people and the police that make security responsive to the communities it serves and accountable to them.
The pillars are not separate programmes. Crime prevention depends on information that young people will share only with an institution they trust; conflict resolution depends on peers whose standing is not compromised by association with coercion; social media engagement depends on a clear line between countering incitement and policing opinion; and community policing is the institutional form in which all three can be sustained. Paper No. 2 examines each of these dependencies against the evidence.
VII · The dialogue
Les questions essentielles et les réponses consignées
The question and answer session was among the most revealing hours of the Summit. Youth delegates put direct and difficult questions to the Inspector-General of Police, and he answered them in public. The exchanges are recorded below as they were reported on the day. Their importance lies less in any single answer than in the fact of the exchange: a young citizen asking the head of the Force to account for its conduct, and receiving an answer, is itself an act of accountability.
The panel in session. Youth delegates put questions to the Inspector-General of Police, 12 August 2024. Photograph: UNESCO REF Media Centre.Lagos delegate
A delegate from Lagos asked the Inspector-General to explain the approach of the Force to the protests, citing concern over the use of force and the constitutional right to peaceful assembly.
The responseThe Inspector-General stated that the role of the police is not to prevent protest but to manage it. He said intelligence had indicated that some actors intended to exploit the protests for destabilisation, and declined to disclose the details of ongoing investigations.
Abuja delegate
A delegate from Abuja asked what the Inspector-General was doing about officers whose misconduct undermines public trust in the Force as a whole.
The responseThe Inspector-General acknowledged that misconduct is found across Nigerian institutions and not in policing alone, observing that societies tend to get the police they deserve. He stated that his administration was removing errant officers, because responsible leadership demands accountability whatever the wider conditions.
Labour sector representative
A representative of the labour sector asked about the police operation of the night of 7 August 2024 at Labour House, Abuja, the national headquarters of the Nigeria Labour Congress, which the Congress had condemned as an intimidation of organised labour.
The responseThe Inspector-General stated that the operation targeted a specific suspect traced by intelligence to a shop within the building, and not the leadership of the Congress, and described it as intelligence-led rather than political.
Halimat Chagua · North-East delegate
Halimat Chagua, a delegate from the North-East, asked what the Force was doing to protect farmers from bandits and insurgents.
The responseThe Inspector-General announced that the Force had begun dedicated farm patrols to give farmers the confidence to work their land, a visible and preventive presence through the planting and harvest seasons.
Panel discussant
Dr Ike Neliaku, President and Chairman of Council of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, commended the President for giving young people a place in the governance of the country and called for greater public investment in their welfare and development.
The chargeHe placed the burden of trust on leadership: “Nigerian youths are one of the very bests in the world, but they need to earn your trust.” Once young people trust their leaders, he said, they will follow them to any level, and leaders must give them the opportunity to do so. The intervention arrived, from the profession of public communication, at the same conclusion as the guest keynote.
A young citizen asking the head of the Force to account for its conduct, and receiving an answer in public, is itself an act of accountability.
The dialogue of 12 August 2024 is recorded here not because every question was settled, but because each was asked and answered in the open.
VIII · Strategic recommendations
Cinq recommandations pour traduire le partenariat en pratique
The Summit adopted five recommendations to carry the partnership from concept to operation. Each is stated below, and each is examined against the evidence in the papers that accompany this report.
Une architecture institutionnelle pour l'engagement des jeunes
Establish youth advisory councils at federal, state and local levels with real influence, and not merely consultative status, in security policy and operational planning. Begin with pilots in selected states, evaluate them rigorously and scale on the strength of demonstrated results.
Des canaux numériques pour l'information communautaire
Develop secure digital channels through which young people can report threats to their communities, with protection of anonymity, verification of information, safeguards of due process and compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023.
Rétablir la confiance par la transparence
Address the trust deficit through accountability: independent oversight of encounters between the police and young people, accessible complaint procedures and regular public reporting on operations affecting youth and their outcomes.
L'autonomisation économique comme stratégie de sécurité
Recognise that durable security requires attention to the economic conditions that frustrate young people, by integrating skills, employment and enterprise support for young people in communities at risk.
Un dialogue continu et un partenariat adaptatif
Institutionalise the Summit as a standing mechanism of dialogue, with national convenings and more frequent regional dialogues, so that security strategy can learn from the experience and perspectives of young people.
IX · National context
Le contexte : août 2024 et la raison d'être du partenariat
The significance of the Summit cannot be read apart from the #EndBadGovernance protests that began on 1 August 2024. Led predominantly by young Nigerians, the demonstrations expressed deep anxiety over the cost of living in the fourteen months after the removal of the petrol subsidy, announced on 29 May 2023, and over a sense that the burden of reform was falling most heavily on those least able to carry it.
The cost was grave. In its report Bloody August, published on 28 November 2024, Amnesty International stated that at least twenty-four people were killed in the states of Borno, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Jigawa and Niger, that more than one thousand two hundred were detained, and that more than 146, among them minors, were arraigned on charges of treasonable felony. The Nigeria Police Force rejected the findings. The Federal Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment estimated the loss to the economy at about $325 million for each day of the protests. Losses of this kind weigh on families and communities long after the streets are cleared, and they deepen the distance between young people and the institutions of the state.
UNESCO REF had completed an advocacy tour of the South-West two months before the protests, and during the protests the President of UNESCO REF undertook a working visit to the Force Headquarters at Louis Edet House, where the preparations for the Summit were concluded with the Force Public Relations Officer. The Summit was the result: a deliberate turn away from reactive crisis management toward the patient work of building trust between the police and the nation's youth.
Convening so soon after the protests, while the issues remained live, was a choice with risks. It was also a signal of institutional responsiveness, and it created a moment for dialogue that delay might have lost. The Summit's lasting value will be measured by what follows it: whether the recommendations of the day are carried into the institutions of policing, and whether young Nigerians come to experience the police as partners in their security.
Subsidy removal Announced 29 May 2023 Protests began 1 August 2024, #EndBadGovernance Reported deaths At least 24 (Amnesty International, November 2024) Reported detentions More than 1,200, including minors (Amnesty International, 28 November 2024) Presidential broadcast 4 August 2024: protesters asked to suspend protest and create room for dialogue Summit announced 7 August 2024, by the Force Public Relations Officer Working visit President of UNESCO REF to Louis Edet House, Force Headquarters, during the protests Summit 12 August 2024, eleven days after the protests began Programme frame UNESCO REF SIP-ALPHA, youth pillar Primary SDGs 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions), 8 (decent work), 4 (education), 17 (partnerships)No security strategy in Nigeria can succeed without the cooperation, the knowledge and the active participation of young Nigerians.
With young people forming the majority of the population, partnership between youth and the institutions of security is not a matter of preference. It is a condition of national stability.
Further reading in the UNESCO REF Media Centre: the lead investigation, The Needful Now: Nigeria's Youth, Security, and the Covenant of August 2024, and the report of the working visit of the President of UNESCO REF to the Nigeria Police Force.
X · The two papers of UNESCO REF
Les compagnons scientifiques de ce rapport
Two papers accompany this report. Each develops at length the theme of the Summit, the value of Nigerian youth for national security, and each is written to the standard of the evidence. The first asks what that value is and why it is so often overlooked; the second asks under what conditions it becomes security in practice.
Paper No. 1 · UNESCO REFLa valeur de la jeunesse
Demography, history and agency: Nigerian youth as a national security asset. From the Nigerian Youth Movement and the Zikists to the National Youth Service Corps and the protests of 2020 and 2024, through the evidence on youth and violence, to the Civilian Joint Task Force, the six security landscapes of the federation and the Youth, Peace and Security agenda of the United Nations, with an SDG alignment map.
Read the paper Paper No. 2 · UNESCO REFLa confiance comme renseignement
Legitimacy, procedural justice and the youth and police compact in Nigeria: why citizens share information with the police, the history and measurement of Nigeria's trust deficit, what the global evidence says about community policing, lessons from Northern Ireland, Colombia, Sierra Leone and Kenya, the ethics of digital reporting, and a theory of change for the compact, with an SDG alignment map.
Read the paperXI · Questions
Le sommet en questions
01 What was the UNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit? Qu'était le sommet de la jeunesse de UNESCO REF et de la police du Nigeria ?It was a national summit convened jointly by UNESCO REF and the Nigeria Police Force on 12 August 2024, the United Nations International Youth Day, at the NPF Resource Centre, Jabi, Abuja. More than 400 youth delegates, drawn from the six geopolitical zones, met the Inspector-General of Police, the Honourable Minister of Police Affairs and the representative of the President under the theme Enhancing the Nigerian Youth's Value for National Security Intelligence.
02 Did President Bola Ahmed Tinubu attend the Police Youths Summit? Le Président Bola Ahmed Tinubu a-t-il pris part au sommet ?President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, honoured the invitation and was represented by Dr Jamila Bio Ibrahim, Honourable Minister of Youth Development, who delivered the address of the President at the close of the Summit and set out the youth empowerment agenda of the Federal Government.
03 Where can I watch the Summit? Où puis-je regarder le sommet ?The Summit was broadcast live by Channels Television. The full broadcast, titled Nigerian Police Summit 2024: Enhancing The Nigerian Youth's Value For National Security Intelligence, can be played on this page or on YouTube at youtu.be/Mw3Wl4R5bLg.
04 What did the Inspector-General of Police say to young Nigerians? Qu'a dit l'Inspecteur général de la police aux jeunes Nigérians ?IGP Kayode Adeolu Egbetokun pledged to protect the rights of young Nigerians, promote their welfare and create opportunities for their growth, described young people as indispensable partners in national security, and answered delegates' questions on protest policing, misconduct within the Force and the protection of farmers, announcing dedicated farm patrols.
05 What did the Minister of Police Affairs say at the Summit? Qu'a déclaré le ministre des Affaires policières ?In an address read by the Permanent Secretary, Senator Ibrahim Gaidam declared that youth engagement in national security is imperative, called for a culture of constructive dialogue, extended condolences to families of young people who died in the protests, and set out measures including the student loan scheme, the new minimum wage and the suspension of tariffs on essential food and medicines.
06 Why was the Summit held in August 2024? Pourquoi le sommet s'est-il tenu en août 2024 ?The Summit was convened eleven days after the #EndBadGovernance protests began on 1 August 2024. UNESCO REF and the Nigeria Police Force chose to answer a moment of mistrust with structured dialogue, and to mark the United Nations International Youth Day by placing young Nigerians and the leadership of the Force in the same hall as partners.
07 What is the trust gap that Professor Fagbohun described? Quel est le déficit de confiance décrit par le professeur Fagbohun ?In the guest keynote, Professor Olanrewaju Fagbohun, SAN, said: “There’s a trust gap in terms of security agencies and the youth.” He observed that security threats in Nigeria had migrated from the physical to the digital space, and called for youth inclusivity in key areas of national security, reward systems for youth development and sponsorship programmes for young people.
08 What are the four pillars of the Summit? Quels sont les quatre piliers du sommet ?Crime prevention, conflict resolution, social media engagement and community policing. Each describes a domain in which the knowledge and capacity of young people can strengthen security, and each depends on trust between young people and the police.
09 What did the Summit recommend? Qu'a recommandé le sommet ?Five recommendations: youth advisory councils with real influence; secure, data-protected digital channels for community information; rebuilding trust through independent oversight, accessible complaints and public reporting; economic empowerment as security strategy; and a standing mechanism of continuous dialogue between young people and the security institutions.
10 What are the two UNESCO REF papers about? Sur quoi portent les deux documents de UNESCO REF ?Paper No. 1, The value of the young, examines the demographic, historical, regional and economic evidence on Nigerian youth as a national security asset, including the experience of the Civilian Joint Task Force, and maps its argument to the Sustainable Development Goals. Paper No. 2, Trust as intelligence, examines police legitimacy, procedural justice, Nigeria's trust deficit and lessons from police reform in Northern Ireland, Colombia, Sierra Leone and Kenya, and sets out a theory of change for the youth and police compact aligned with SDG 16.
11 How does the Summit relate to the UN Youth, Peace and Security agenda? Quel est le lien entre le sommet et le programme Jeunesse, paix et sécurité des Nations Unies ?The Summit was held on the United Nations International Youth Day and its pillars and recommendations correspond closely to the five pillars of UN Security Council resolution 2250: participation, protection, prevention, partnerships, and disengagement and reintegration. It is a national contribution to that agenda and to SDG 16.
12 What is The Needful Now special report? Qu'est-ce que le rapport spécial The Needful Now ?The Needful Now: Nigeria's Youth, Security, and the Covenant of August 2024 is the lead investigation of the UNESCO REF Media Centre on the events that led to the Summit, from the removal of the petrol subsidy in May 2023 to the protests of August 2024. It is published in the UNESCO REF Special Reports.
13 Is the Summit connected to SIP-ALPHA? Le sommet est-il lié à SIP-ALPHA ?Yes. The Summit was convened under the youth pillar of the UNESCO REF Strategic Intervention Programme, SIP-ALPHA, which holds that Nigeria's young population is a national strength to be directed into every sector, including national security.
14 What is UNESCO REF? Qu'est-ce que UNESCO REF ?UNESCO REF, the Read and Earn Federation for UNESCO, is a multidimensional and multisectoral development institution established in 2009 within the provisions of UNESCO, as authorised by the 13th Session of the UNESCO General Conference, Paris, 1964, and constituted through the National Commission for UNESCO, Nigeria.
15 How can an institution partner with UNESCO REF on this work? Comment une institution peut-elle devenir partenaire de UNESCO REF dans ce domaine ?Governments, security institutions, development partners, research partners and youth organisations may write to UNESCO REF at info@unescoref.org.
A partnership for trust
Un pacte entre la jeunesse du Nigeria et les institutions qui protègent la nation
The UNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit was convened in a difficult hour and chose the harder path: to meet grievance with dialogue, and suspicion with an open hall. It established that the security interests of the nation and the capacities of its young people are aligned far more closely than the events of August 2024 suggested.
What remains is the institutional will to carry the recommendations of the day into practice. UNESCO REF, under its Strategic Intervention Programme SIP-ALPHA, remains committed to that work with the Nigeria Police Force and with every institution that shares the conviction that the young people of Nigeria are the nation's strength.
Convened jointly by UNESCO REF and the Nigeria Police Force on United Nations International Youth Day, 12 August 2024, under the UNESCO REF Strategic Intervention Programme (SIP-ALPHA).
The lead investigationReturn to the Media Centre ← Back to the report of activitiesUNESCO REF · Paper No. 1 · 2026
La valeur de la jeunesse : démographie, histoire et capacité d'agir, la jeunesse nigériane comme atout de sécurité nationale
Demography, history and agency: Nigerian youth as a national security asset. A structured review of the demographic, historical, economic, regional and policy evidence, and of the conditions under which the value of the young is realised
Author UNESCO REF Series Police Youths Summit Papers, No. 1 Published 2026 Length Six pages, fifteen sections, eight tables, SDG alignment mapCover: Corps members of the National Youth Service Corps. Photograph: Afolabi Olanrewaju Taiwo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The theme of the UNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit of 12 August 2024, Enhancing the Nigerian Youth's Value for National Security Intelligence, presupposes that young Nigerians possess a value for national security that is not yet fully realised. This paper examines that presupposition. It defines youth across the competing official definitions and sets out what "value" can mean in the context of security. It reviews the demographic evidence on Nigeria's young population and the conditions under which a young population becomes a dividend rather than a strain. It traces the role of young people in the making of modern Nigeria, from the Nigerian Youth Movement of the 1930s to the protests of 2020 and 2024. It examines the "deficit lens", the habit of seeing young people chiefly as a risk, against the evidence on youth and violence, which is far more qualified than the lens assumes, and presents the Youth, Peace and Security agenda of the United Nations as the principal alternative. It identifies five distinct contributions that young people make to security, and then tests the argument against Nigerian experience: the Civilian Joint Task Force in the North-East, the community and state security structures that have multiplied since 2015, the Presidential Amnesty Programme in the Niger Delta, and the very different security landscapes of the six geopolitical zones. It reviews the labour market evidence that explains why so much of the value of the young remains under-realised, sets out the conditions that realising it requires and the risks of doing harm, maps the argument to the Sustainable Development Goals, and closes with eight design principles and indicators.
Keywords: youth, national security, demographic dividend, Nigeria, Youth Peace and Security, UNSCR 2250, Civilian Joint Task Force, vigilantism, Amnesty Programme, underemployment, agency, Sustainable Development Goals
1. Introduction
Every security institution in the world depends on information it does not itself possess. Police forces learn of threats chiefly because members of the public tell them, and the public that knows most about the life of a street, a market, a campus or an online forum is disproportionately young. In a country whose population is as young as Nigeria's, the security of the nation therefore rests to an unusual degree on the knowledge, judgement and goodwill of its young people. That is the plain meaning of the Summit's theme.
Yet the dominant public conversation about young people and security in Nigeria, as in much of the world, runs the other way. Young people appear in it chiefly as a risk: as potential recruits for insurgency, as participants in cybercrime, as protesters to be contained. The Summit of 12 August 2024 was convened eleven days after protests that seemed, to some observers, to confirm that view. Its organisers proposed the opposite reading: that the protests were themselves evidence of a reservoir of civic energy, informed, organised and articulate, that the nation could not afford to treat as a threat.
This paper asks which reading the evidence supports. It proceeds in five movements. Sections 2 to 4 establish who the young are, how many they are, and what they have done in the making of the Nigerian state. Sections 5 to 7 examine the deficit lens against the evidence, present the international alternative and set out what young people specifically contribute to security. Sections 8 and 9 test the argument against Nigeria's own security practice and its regional diversity. Sections 10 to 12 explain why the value of the young is under-realised, what realising it requires and what can go wrong. Sections 13 to 15 map the argument to the Sustainable Development Goals and propose principles and indicators. Paper No. 2 takes up the question of trust, which this paper identifies as the decisive condition, and examines it in detail.
2. Qui est jeune, et qu'est-ce que la valeur
There is no single definition of youth. The United Nations, for statistical purposes, defines youth as persons between fifteen and twenty-four years of age. The African Youth Charter of the African Union, adopted in 2006, adopts the wider band of fifteen to thirty-five. Nigeria's National Youth Policy, revised in 2019, defines youth as persons between fifteen and twenty-nine, narrowing an earlier national definition of eighteen to thirty-five. Security Council resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security refers to persons between eighteen and twenty-nine. The differences matter. A definition extending to thirty-five includes most of the graduate workforce and many young parents; one ending at twenty-four captures chiefly students and school leavers. Throughout this paper, where data are reported, the age band of the source is stated.
| Source | Age band | Purpose and remarks |
|---|---|---|
| United Nations (statistical) | 15 to 24 | Used for global statistics; does not prejudice national definitions |
| UNSCR 2250 (2015) | 18 to 29 | Youth, Peace and Security agenda; acknowledges national and regional variation |
| African Youth Charter (2006) | 15 to 35 | Binding regional instrument of the African Union |
| Nigeria, National Youth Policy (2019) | 15 to 29 | Revised from the earlier national band of 18 to 35 |
| NBS labour force reporting | 15 to 24 and 25 to 34 | Bands used in the Nigeria Labour Force Survey; earlier series reported 15 to 34 |
Table 1. Definitions of youth in international and Nigerian instruments.
"Value" also requires definition. In this paper the value of young people for national security means the contribution they can make to the prevention of harm, the resolution of conflict and the protection of communities, through what they know, whom they know, what they can do and the standing they hold among their peers. The definition is deliberately wider than the provision of intelligence in the narrow sense. Information is only one of the things young people bring to security, and, as Paper No. 2 shows, it is the one most easily compromised if it is sought in the wrong way.
The definition has a second implication. Value is not a fixed endowment; it is realised or wasted according to the conditions in which young people live. A young engineer whose skills go unused, a community mediator whose standing is undermined by abusive policing, a digital native whose fluency is spent on fraud rather than on protection: in each case the value exists and is lost. The question the Summit posed is therefore not only how much value young Nigerians possess but what the nation must do so that it is realised.
3. La réalité démographique
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and one of the youngest large countries in the world. Estimates of the United Nations Population Division place its population above two hundred and twenty million in the mid-2020s, with a median age of about eighteen years; roughly six in ten Nigerians are under the age of twenty-five. On the projections of the same body, Nigeria will remain among the most populous countries in the world through the middle of the century, and its working-age population will grow by tens of millions in each of the coming decades.
Demographers describe the opportunity created by such a structure as the "demographic dividend". As fertility falls, the share of the population of working age rises relative to dependent children and elderly people. If those additional workers are productively employed, savings, investment and output per person can rise sharply. Bloom, Canning and Sevilla (2003) estimated that a substantial part of the rapid growth of East Asia between 1965 and 1990 can be attributed to this effect. The same authors were careful to stress that the dividend is not automatic. It depends on policies and institutions: on education and health that make young workers productive, on labour markets and investment that employ them, and on governance that allows the gains to be retained.
Where those conditions are absent, a large young population can become a source of strain. The difference between dividend and strain is not demographic; it is institutional. That observation is the foundation of this paper's argument. The Summit's theme assumes that young Nigerians have a value for national security. Demography establishes only that there are very many of them. Whether their number translates into security or insecurity depends on what the nation does with the decades in which they are young.
| Condition of the dividend | Mechanism | Bearing on security |
|---|---|---|
| Human capital | Education and health make young workers productive | Raises the opportunity cost of participation in violence and crime |
| Productive employment | Labour markets and investment absorb new workers | Provides income, status and routine, reducing grievance and idleness |
| Institutions and governance | Rule of law, accountable government, functioning markets | Provides channels for grievance and confidence that effort is rewarded |
| Inclusion and voice | Participation of the young in decisions that affect them | Reduces alienation and increases cooperation with institutions |
Table 2. Conditions under which a young population becomes a dividend. Adapted from Bloom, Canning and Sevilla (2003) and World Bank (2011).
4. La jeunesse dans la construction du Nigeria
The view of young people as a risk to be managed sits uneasily with Nigerian history, in which the young have repeatedly been among the principal builders of the nation. The modern nationalist movement was, in its origins, a youth movement. The Lagos Youth Movement, founded in 1934 in protest at the inferior status of the Yaba Higher College, became the Nigerian Youth Movement in 1936, and under leaders including H. O. Davies, Ernest Ikoli, Samuel Akinsanya and, later, Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikiwe, it became the first political organisation to articulate a national rather than a regional or ethnic programme (Coleman, 1958). Its Youth Charter of 1938 called for a united Nigeria and for the development of its people.
The radicalism of the following decade was also the work of the young. The Zikist Movement, formed in 1946 by young admirers of Azikiwe, pressed for immediate self-government and paid for its boldness with prosecutions and, in 1950, proscription. Students and young professionals carried the nationalist argument through the 1950s, and many of the officials who built the institutions of the independent state after 1960 did so in their twenties and thirties.
After the civil war of 1967 to 1970, the Federal Government turned to the young to repair the nation's unity. The National Youth Service Corps, established in 1973, required graduates to serve for a year outside their state of origin. Whatever its later difficulties, the scheme rests on a premise that this paper shares: that the integration and security of the nation are best built by young people who know it, in its diversity, at first hand. That premise was visible at the opening of the Summit, when corps members presented the dances of four of Nigeria's cultural regions.
Figure 1. National service in the community: corps members of the NYSC commission a water project with local residents and leaders. Photograph: Dejazzeez, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.Young people were again prominent in the struggle for the return to civilian rule in the 1990s, through the student movement, through human rights organisations founded and staffed largely by young lawyers and activists, and through the pro-democracy coalitions of the period. In the present century their civic role has moved increasingly online. The #EndSARS protests of October 2020, against abuses attributed to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the police, were organised largely by young people through social media and were notable for their discipline, their fundraising transparency and their capacity to provide legal and medical support to participants. The #EndBadGovernance protests of August 2024 drew on the same capacities, in harder economic conditions.
Figure 2. Civic energy in service of the nation: corps members on an anti-corruption outreach. Photograph: Poet1803, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.| Period | Movement or institution | Contribution of the young |
|---|---|---|
| 1934 to 1938 | Lagos Youth Movement; Nigerian Youth Movement; Youth Charter | First national, rather than regional, political programme |
| 1946 to 1950 | Zikist Movement | Pressure for self-government |
| 1950s to 1960s | Students and young professionals | Staffing of the institutions of the new state |
| 1973 | National Youth Service Corps | National integration after the civil war |
| 1990s | Student and human rights movements | The struggle for the return to civilian rule |
| 2009 | Presidential Amnesty Programme, Niger Delta | Disarmament and retraining of young ex-militants |
| 2013 | Civilian Joint Task Force, Borno State | Local knowledge and defence of communities against insurgency |
| 2020 | #EndSARS | Civic mobilisation for police accountability |
| 2024 | #EndBadGovernance; UNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit | Mobilisation over the cost of living, followed by structured dialogue with the Force |
Table 3. Young people in the political and security history of Nigeria: a selective chronology.
Two lessons follow from this history. The first is that civic energy among the young is a constant of Nigerian public life and has more often built institutions than destroyed them. The second is that the relationship between that energy and the state has always been contested. The same qualities that made the Nigerian Youth Movement and the Zikists effective, organisation, conviction and impatience, made them uncomfortable for the authorities of their time. A security strategy that treats youthful civic energy as a threat will find itself in conflict with one of the oldest and most productive forces in the nation's life. A strategy that treats it as an asset can enlist it.
5. Le prisme du déficit et ses limites
The deficit lens has an intellectual history. In the 1990s some writers on security argued that countries with large proportions of young men were especially prone to violence, a thesis popularised under the name of the "youth bulge". The most careful empirical test, by Urdal (2006), found that large youth cohorts were associated with an increased risk of some forms of political violence, including armed conflict and terrorism, across the period 1950 to 2000. Urdal's findings are often cited without their qualifications. He found that the association was conditioned by economic circumstances and by the political system, and that it was weaker or absent where opportunities for education and employment were available. The risk was not youthfulness itself but youthfulness without prospects.
A second version of the deficit lens holds that unemployment drives young people into violence because they have little to lose. The evidence for this proposition is weaker than its popularity suggests. Cramer (2010), reviewing the literature for the World Bank's World Development Report on conflict, concluded that the link between unemployment and participation in violence is plausible but not well established, and that unemployment matters chiefly as part of a broader experience of injustice and humiliation. Mercy Corps (2015), drawing on surveys and interviews in Afghanistan, Colombia and Somalia, found that the principal drivers of youth participation in political violence were experiences of injustice, discrimination, corruption and abuse by security forces, rather than unemployment as such. Ismail and Olonisakin (2021), reviewing the evidence for Africa specifically, reached a similar conclusion: participation in violence is shaped by exclusion, grievance and relationships with the state far more than by the condition of being young or poor.
The most striking evidence on this point comes from UNDP's study of recruitment into violent extremism in Africa, Journey to Extremism (2017), based on interviews with several hundred former members of extremist groups, including in Nigeria. Asked what event had finally pushed them to join, a large majority of respondents named an action by state authorities: the killing or arrest of a family member or friend. The finding should give pause to any security strategy built on the deficit lens. If abusive treatment by the state is among the most powerful triggers of recruitment, then the way the state treats young people is not incidental to security. It is central to it.
None of this evidence denies that some young people commit crimes or join violent groups. It establishes something more useful: that the behaviour of the minority is shaped by conditions the state can influence, and that the majority, who are neither criminals nor insurgents, respond to the same conditions in the opposite direction. Treated with fairness and offered prospects, young people cooperate with institutions. Treated with suspicion and denied prospects, they withdraw from them. The deficit lens, by treating the whole generation as a risk, produces the very withdrawal that makes security harder to achieve.
6. De la menace à l'atout : le programme Jeunesse, paix et sécurité
The international community has, over the past decade, moved decisively away from the deficit lens. On 9 December 2015 the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 2250, the first resolution devoted to youth, peace and security. It recognised that young people play an important and positive role in the maintenance and promotion of international peace and security, and it urged member states to give young people a greater voice in decision-making at all levels. Resolution 2419 (2018) called for the inclusion of young people in negotiating and implementing peace agreements, and resolution 2535 (2020) asked member states to develop policies and plans for youth, peace and security and to protect young peacebuilders and civic space. The African Union has adopted the same direction through its Continental Framework on Youth, Peace and Security, adopted in 2020.
Resolution 2250 organised its provisions under five pillars, which provide a useful frame for the work of the Summit. The Security Council also commissioned an independent progress study, published in 2018 as The Missing Peace (Simpson, 2018), which consulted thousands of young people across the world. Its central finding was that the policy assumption that young people are a threat had produced responses that were at best ineffective and at worst counter-productive, and that the "missing peace" lay in the unrecognised contributions young people were already making to the prevention of violence in their communities.
| UNSCR 2250 pillar | Content | Correspondence with the Summit |
|---|---|---|
| Participation | Inclusive representation of youth in decision-making on security | Recommendation I: youth advisory councils with real influence |
| Protection | Protection of the lives and rights of young people and civic space | Recommendation III: oversight, complaints and transparency; the dialogue on protest policing |
| Prevention | Enabling environments for youth action in preventing violence | Pillars I and II: crime prevention and conflict resolution |
| Partnerships | Engagement of youth by the United Nations, states and communities | Pillar IV: community policing; the UNESCO REF and NPF partnership |
| Disengagement and reintegration | Support to young people leaving violence | Recommendation IV: economic empowerment as security strategy |
Table 4. The five pillars of UNSCR 2250 and their correspondence with the pillars and recommendations of the Summit.
The correspondence is close, and it is not accidental. The Summit was convened on the United Nations International Youth Day and should be read as a national contribution to the implementation of the agenda that resolution 2250 established. Nigeria, as the most populous member of the African Union and a frequent contributor to peace operations, has every reason to lead in the development of a national framework for youth, peace and security. The Summit, and the recommendations it produced, offer a foundation for such a framework.
7. Ce que les jeunes apportent à la sécurité
If the value of young people for security is to be enhanced, it must first be described precisely. Five contributions can be distinguished. They are related but not identical, and each is realised and destroyed in different ways.
Knowledge of place. Young people spend more of their time in public and semi-public spaces than older adults: on the street, in markets and motor parks, in schools and campuses, in sports grounds, in places of worship and, increasingly, in online communities. They are therefore often the first to notice changes in those spaces: a stranger who does not belong, a dispute that is escalating, a rumour that is spreading, a new group recruiting. This is the raw material of early warning, and no surveillance system can fully replicate it.
Networks. Young people are connected to one another through dense networks of friendship, schooling, work, faith and leisure, which cut across the boundaries of ethnicity and region more often than the networks of their parents. These networks carry information quickly, and they carry influence. A message from a peer is more persuasive to a young person than a message from an official.
Digital fluency. The generation now entering adulthood is the first to have grown up with the mobile internet. Its members understand the platforms on which information, and misinformation, now travels, and recognise the signs of manipulation, impersonation and incitement more readily than most institutions. This fluency can serve security through early detection and correction; it can also serve crime, as the growth of online fraud demonstrates. Which way it is turned depends in part on whether lawful opportunities exist for its use.
Legitimacy among peers. Some young people hold standing among their peers that no official can hold: the respected student leader, the trusted youth pastor or imam, the community organiser, the popular artist. Such people can mediate disputes, dissuade the hesitant and give credibility to messages of peace. Their standing is their value, and it is fragile. If they are seen to be acting as agents of the police rather than as members of their communities, it disappears.
Innovation. Nigeria's technology sector, built largely by entrepreneurs in their twenties and thirties, has produced solutions to problems of payment, logistics and communication that established institutions had failed to solve. The same capacity can be turned to problems of public safety: reporting tools, mapping of risk, verification of information and the design of services that young people will actually use.
| Contribution | How it serves security | How it is realised | How it is destroyed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knowledge of place | Early warning of threats and tensions | Safe, trusted channels for sharing what is known | Reprisals against those who report; misuse of information |
| Networks | Rapid reach of prevention and counter-messaging | Partnership with youth organisations on their own terms | Infiltration or co-option of youth groups |
| Digital fluency | Detection of incitement and correction of falsehood | Lawful opportunities, training, digital employment | Policing of lawful opinion; absence of opportunity |
| Peer legitimacy | Mediation, dissuasion, credible messaging | Independence and visible fairness of the partnership | Perception that peer leaders are agents of the state |
| Innovation | New tools for reporting, mapping and verification | Investment, procurement from young enterprises, open data | Exclusion from procurement and decision-making |
Table 5. Five contributions of young people to security, and the conditions that realise or destroy them.
8. Les jeunes dans la pratique de la sécurité au Nigeria
The argument of the preceding sections is not merely theoretical. Nigeria has already mobilised young people for security on a large scale, in several forms and with mixed results. That experience is the most relevant evidence available to the Summit, and it teaches both what young people can contribute and what happens when they are mobilised without structure.
In 2013, at the height of the Boko Haram insurgency, young residents of Maiduguri organised themselves to identify insurgents hiding within their neighbourhoods and to defend their communities. The movement, which became known as the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) and, locally, as Yan Gora, spread across Borno State and into neighbouring states. Its members, overwhelmingly young men, possessed precisely what the military lacked: knowledge of who belonged where, of family connections and of local movements. Researchers and practitioners widely credit that knowledge with a decisive change in the course of the campaign in Maiduguri (Bamidele, 2016; International Crisis Group, 2022). The Borno State Government later absorbed many members into a state-supported youth scheme, providing stipends and a measure of organisation.
The record also shows the cost of mobilisation without rules. Human rights organisations documented abuses attributed to members of the CJTF, including arbitrary detention and violence against suspects (Center for Civilians in Conflict, 2018). Children were recruited and used: in September 2017 the CJTF signed an action plan with the United Nations to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children, and in October 2018 the United Nations reported the release of 833 children from its ranks. Members have also been killed in large numbers by insurgents, often without the protection or compensation afforded to formal forces. And as the conflict has evolved, questions have grown about what will become of tens of thousands of young people trained in arms with no secure path into civilian employment.
The lesson of the CJTF is not that young people should not be mobilised for security. It is that their value is immense when the threat is local and their knowledge is local, and that this value must be governed: by clear rules of conduct, by accountability for abuse, by the strict exclusion of children, by protection and compensation for those who serve, and by a credible path out of security work and into productive life.
Since 2015 the security landscape has filled with community and state structures in which young people predominate. In the South-West, the six state governments established the Western Nigeria Security Network, known as Amotekun, between 2019 and 2020, under state laws. In the South-East, Ebube Agu was established by state governors in 2021. In the North, the Hisbah boards of several states, beginning with Kano in 2003, enforce religious and moral codes under state law, while hunters' associations and local vigilante groups operate across the North-West and North Central zones. International Crisis Group (2022), in a study of vigilantism in Nigeria, concluded that such groups had become a near-term necessity in many areas because the formal forces were overstretched, but that many operated with few guidelines, limited oversight and uneven internal accountability, and that their relations with the police ranged from cooperation to hostility.
The police themselves have sought to incorporate community participation. The Nigeria Police Force adopted a community policing strategy in 2019, and the Police Act 2020 gives statutory recognition to partnership with communities and provides for the engagement of special constables drawn from them. The Summit's fourth pillar, community policing, should be read against this background. Young people are already deeply involved in security in Nigeria. The question is not whether they will be involved but under what rules, with what oversight, and in partnership with whom.
The third Nigerian experience concerns the reverse movement: from violence to civilian life. In 2009 the Federal Government offered amnesty to militants in the Niger Delta who surrendered their weapons. Some thirty thousand young men were eventually enrolled in a programme of stipends, vocational training and education, including study abroad. The programme coincided with a substantial reduction in attacks on oil infrastructure, and it is frequently cited as an example of disengagement and reintegration, the fifth pillar of resolution 2250. Critics have argued that it relied heavily on payments, that it did too little to address the underlying grievances of the region, and that its benefits were unevenly distributed. Its lesson is double: a credible economic future can draw young people away from violence, and a programme that does not change the conditions that produced the violence risks purchasing a pause rather than a peace.
9. Un pays, six paysages de sécurité
Nigerian debates about youth and security often speak of "the youth" and "insecurity" as if both were uniform. Neither is. The security challenges of the six geopolitical zones differ in kind, and so do the roles young people play in them, both as victims and perpetrators and as protectors and peacebuilders. Table 6 summarises the principal differences.
| Zone | Principal security challenges | Existing youth roles | What youth engagement should prioritise |
|---|---|---|---|
| North-East | Insurgency; displacement; recovery of communities | CJTF; hunters; youth in recovery programmes | Governance and demobilisation of armed youth; reintegration; protection of returning communities |
| North-West | Banditry; kidnapping for ransom; rural insecurity | Local vigilantes; hunters' associations | Early warning in rural areas; protection of reporters; regulation of vigilantes; rural livelihoods |
| North Central | Farmer-herder conflict; communal clashes | Youth groups in both farming and pastoral communities | Inter-communal mediation; joint peace committees; protection of farmers in planting and harvest seasons |
| South-West | Urban crime; cult violence; kidnapping on highways | Amotekun; student and community groups | Campus and urban crime prevention; digital reporting; coordination of Amotekun with the police |
| South-East | Separatist agitation; enforced sit-at-home; attacks on security personnel | Ebube Agu; town unions; youth associations | Dialogue; protection of civic space; economic activity; trust-building with the police |
| South-South | Oil-related crime; militancy; cult violence | Amnesty programme beneficiaries; community youth bodies | Sustained reintegration; environmental livelihoods; prevention of cult recruitment |
Table 6. Security landscapes of the six geopolitical zones and the priorities of youth engagement. Compiled from International Crisis Group (2022) and the sources cited in Section 8.
The table has a direct implication for the Summit's first recommendation. Youth advisory councils established at state level should be designed for the security landscape of their zone. A council in Borno will be concerned with demobilisation and reintegration; one in Kaduna or Benue with mediation between communities; one in Lagos with urban crime and digital reporting. A single national template, applied uniformly, would miss the problems that matter most in each place. The national level should set standards of conduct, protection and reporting; the zonal and state levels should set the substance.
The table also shows that young people appear on every side of Nigeria's security problems. In each zone some young people are among the perpetrators of violence, many more are among its victims, and a significant number are already among those working to prevent it. A strategy that recognises the last group, and strengthens it, will reduce the first.
10. Une valeur sous-exploitée : le travail et l'attente
A recurring obstacle to the realisation of the contributions described above is the economic situation of young Nigerians. The measurement of that situation changed in 2023, when the National Bureau of Statistics adopted a revised methodology for the Nigeria Labour Force Survey in line with the international standards of the International Labour Organization. Under the earlier methodology, which counted as unemployed many people working fewer than twenty hours a week, the Bureau reported youth unemployment (ages fifteen to thirty-four) of more than forty per cent in late 2020. Under the revised methodology, which counts as employed anyone who worked for at least one hour in the reference week, headline unemployment fell to single figures: the Bureau reported a national unemployment rate of 4.3 per cent for the second quarter of 2024.
The two figures do not contradict each other; they measure different things. The revised figures show that very few young Nigerians are entirely without work. They also show how that work is structured. In the second quarter of 2024 the Bureau reported that about 93 per cent of employment was informal, and that unemployment combined with time-related underemployment stood at about 13 per cent. The typical young Nigerian is not idle. He or she is working, often in several activities at once, in jobs that are informal, insecure and poorly matched to the education they have received.
Figure 3. Talent in waiting: young Nigerians at the Discovery for Youths leadership and enterprise forum. Photograph: MediaMOF, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.This is the situation that the SIP-ALPHA framework of UNESCO REF describes. The problem of Nigerian youth is not, in the first instance, a lack of skills. It is that a large and growing graduate workforce has been trained for sectors that are saturated, and that its capacities are therefore wasted. The sociologist Alcinda Honwana (2012) has described the condition of young Africans caught between the end of education and the attainment of the markers of adulthood (stable work, a home, marriage) as "waithood". Waithood is not idleness; it is improvisation under constraint. It is also a condition in which frustration accumulates, and in which the gap between what young people know they could contribute and what they are permitted to contribute becomes a political fact.
For security, the implication is direct. The value that young people could bring is not absent; it is under-realised. A young graduate in computer science selling recharge cards, a trained mediator without a role, a gifted organiser without an institution: each represents security value that the nation has paid to create and failed to use. The economic recommendations of the Summit, and the undertakings of the Presidency recorded in the report, should be read in this light. Their purpose is not to keep young people busy. It is to put their capacities to use.
11. Ce qu'exige la réalisation de cette valeur
The preceding sections suggest that the value of young people for security is realised when four conditions are met together. None is sufficient alone.
Capability. Amartya Sen (1999) defined development as the expansion of the real freedoms that people enjoy: their capability to be and to do the things they have reason to value. Applied to young people and security, the capability approach directs attention away from what young people lack and toward what they are able to do. Education, training and the means of livelihood are instruments of capability. So are information, mobility and access to institutions. A young person who wishes to report a threat but does not know how, or fears the consequences, lacks a capability as surely as one who lacks a skill.
Recognition. Young people respond to how they are seen. Institutions that treat them as suspects receive the behaviour of suspects: avoidance, silence, hostility. Institutions that treat them as partners receive cooperation more often than not. Recognition is not flattery. It is the institutional acknowledgement, expressed in procedures as well as words, that young people are citizens with rights and contributions, and not merely objects of policy.
Voice. Participation can be genuine or nominal. Hart (1992), in a widely used typology for UNICEF, distinguished eight levels of participation, from manipulation, decoration and tokenism at the bottom to initiatives shared between young people and adults at the top. Much of what passes for youth participation in security policy sits on the lower rungs: young people are invited to attend, to perform and to applaud, but not to decide. The Summit's first recommendation, youth advisory councils with real influence and not merely consultative status, is an explicit commitment to the upper rungs. Its success will be measured by whether the councils change decisions.
An economic stake. Young people need a stake in the order that security protects. The rigorous evidence on whether economic programmes reduce violence is mixed but instructive. Blattman and Annan (2016) evaluated a programme offering agricultural training and capital to high-risk young men in Liberia and found that it increased their incomes and reduced their engagement in illicit activity and their interest in recruitment as mercenaries, with the largest effects among those who expected to receive the promised capital. Blattman, Fiala and Martinez (2014) found that cash grants for vocational enterprise in northern Uganda raised the earnings of young people substantially. Other programmes have shown smaller or no effects on violence. The lesson is that economic programmes contribute to security when they are credible, well targeted and connected to a future that young people can see; the Niger Delta experience described in Section 8 shows what happens when payments substitute for that future.
| Rung | Hart's level of participation | Example in security policy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | Manipulation, decoration, tokenism (non-participation) | Young people invited to fill a hall, perform or applaud an announced policy |
| 4 | Assigned but informed | Young people given defined roles in a programme whose purpose they understand |
| 5 | Consulted and informed | Young people's views sought and reported back, with explanation of what was done |
| 6 | Adult-initiated, decisions shared | Youth advisory councils with documented influence on policing priorities |
| 7 and 8 | Youth-initiated and directed; decisions shared with adults | Youth-led prevention and mediation initiatives supported by the police on their own terms |
Table 7. Levels of youth participation applied to security policy. Adapted from Hart (1992).
12. Les risques de nuire
Efforts to enhance the security value of young people carry risks that should be named at the outset, so that they can be managed. The Nigerian experience reviewed in Section 8 gives each of them a concrete form.
The first is instrumentalisation: the treatment of young people as sources of information to be harvested rather than as partners whose interests are served. It is ethically objectionable and practically self-defeating, because young people quickly recognise it and withdraw. The second is exposure. Young people who share information about threats may face reprisals; members of the CJTF have been targeted by insurgents for precisely this reason. Any programme that encourages reporting without guaranteeing protection places young people in danger.
The third is armed mobilisation without governance. Where young people are drawn into security roles that involve force, the absence of rules, oversight and accountability produces abuses that destroy the trust the mobilisation was meant to build, as the record of several vigilante structures shows. The fourth is the recruitment of children, which is prohibited in international law and which the CJTF action plan of 2017 was designed to end. No security role for "youth" can include persons under eighteen.
The fifth is the securitisation of youth policy: the gradual subordination of education, employment and welfare programmes to security objectives, which stigmatises participants and neglects the majority of young people who simply need opportunity. The sixth is the narrowing of civic space: a framework that treats protest, criticism or online dissent as threats will collide with the constitutional rights of citizens and with the evidence that civic participation is protective. The seventh is exclusion. Programmes for "youth" too often become programmes for young men. Young women have distinct experiences of insecurity, including gender-based violence and the burdens of displacement, and distinct contributions to make to its prevention. They must be included by design, in numbers and in leadership.
13. Carte d'alignement sur les objectifs de développement durable
The value of the young for national security is not a separate agenda from sustainable development; it is one of its foundations. The 2030 Agenda declares that there can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development, and it names young people as critical agents of change. The argument of this paper corresponds to specific targets of six Sustainable Development Goals. The map below sets out each correspondence and the official SDG indicator by which progress can be observed.
SDG 16 SDG 8 SDG 4 SDG 5 SDG 10 SDG 17| Goal and target | Argument of this paper | Official SDG indicator |
|---|---|---|
| SDG 16, target 16.1: reduce all forms of violence | Young people as partners in prevention and early warning (Sections 7 to 9) | 16.1.4 Proportion of the population that feel safe walking alone around the area they live |
| SDG 16, target 16.7: responsive, inclusive, participatory decision-making | Youth advisory councils with real influence (Section 11; Table 7) | 16.7.2 Proportion of population who believe decision-making is inclusive and responsive, by age |
| SDG 8, target 8.6: reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training | The under-realised value of the young (Section 10) | 8.6.1 Proportion of youth (aged 15 to 24) not in education, employment or training |
| SDG 8, target 8.b: a global strategy for youth employment | Economic stake as a condition of security (Section 11) | 8.b.1 Existence of a developed and operationalised national strategy for youth employment |
| SDG 4, target 4.4: skills for employment and entrepreneurship | Capability and the SIP-ALPHA redirection of the graduate workforce (Sections 10 and 11) | 4.4.1 Proportion of youth and adults with information and communications technology skills |
| SDG 4, target 4.7: education for a culture of peace and non-violence | Youth-led mediation and counter-messaging (Section 7) | 4.7.1 Extent to which global citizenship education and education for sustainable development are mainstreamed |
| SDG 5, target 5.5: women's full participation in decision-making | Inclusion of young women by design (Section 12) | 5.5.1 Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments and local governments |
| SDG 10, target 10.2: social, economic and political inclusion of all | Against the deficit lens; exclusion as a driver of violence (Section 5) | 10.2.1 Proportion of people living below 50 per cent of median income, by age |
| SDG 17, target 17.17: effective public and civil society partnerships | The UNESCO REF and Nigeria Police Force partnership as a model (Section 6) | 17.17.1 measures only infrastructure partnerships; progress on this partnership is reported through the annual public report proposed in Principle 8 |
Table 8. SDG alignment map for Paper No. 1. Indicator wording from the global indicator framework of the United Nations Statistical Commission.
14. Principes de conception et indicateurs
The analysis of this paper yields eight design principles for programmes that seek to enhance the value of Nigerian youth for national security. Each is paired with an indicator by which progress can be observed.
Indicator: share of young respondents in a periodic survey who report being treated with respect in their last contact with the police.
Indicator: number of documented security policy decisions changed in response to youth advisory councils.
Indicator: state councils with published priorities drawn from the security landscape of their zone (Table 6).
Indicator: existence and use of protected reporting channels; recorded incidents of reprisal; compensation provided to injured community security volunteers.
Indicator: published codes of conduct and oversight arrangements for community security structures; verified absence of persons under eighteen.
Indicator: young people in security partnerships also enrolled in training, employment or enterprise support; transitions into civilian employment.
Indicator: share of young women among council members, delegates and beneficiaries, with a target of parity.
Indicator: annual public report on the youth and security partnership, disaggregated by state and sex, and linked to the SDG indicators in Table 8.
15. Limites, programme de recherche et conclusion
This paper is a structured review of published scholarship, official data and public reports. It does not present new primary data. Its account of Nigerian history is necessarily selective; its summary of the six zones simplifies landscapes that vary greatly within each zone; and its use of international evidence assumes a degree of transferability to Nigeria that should be tested. Evidence on the CJTF and other community security structures comes largely from qualitative studies and reports, and rigorous assessment of their effects is scarce. The labour market figures cited are subject to the revision of methodology in 2023, which complicates comparison over time.
Five questions deserve priority in research. What do young Nigerians identify as the conditions under which they would share information with the police, and how do these differ by zone, sex and education? What has become of young people who served in the CJTF and similar structures, and what paths into civilian life have worked? What has been the experience of the community policing structures established since 2019? Which economic programmes for young people have measurable effects on security outcomes, and through which mechanisms? And how can the digital fluency of the young be engaged for public safety without narrowing civic space? UNESCO REF invites research partners to work with it on these questions.
The value of Nigerian youth for national security is real, large and largely unrealised. It is real because young people possess knowledge, networks, fluency, standing and ideas that no security institution can supply for itself, as the young residents of Maiduguri demonstrated in 2013. It is large because Nigeria is among the youngest nations on earth. It is largely unrealised because the conditions that would release it, capability, recognition, voice and an economic stake, have too often been absent, and because the deficit lens has led institutions to treat as a risk what they should have treated as an asset. Where Nigeria has mobilised the young without governance, it has paid a price; where it has offered them a future, it has gained. The Summit of 12 August 2024 placed Nigeria within the international recognition of young people as partners in peace. The question that remains, which Paper No. 2 addresses, is how the trust on which partnership depends can be built.
Cite as: UNESCO REF (2026). The value of the young: demography, history and agency, Nigerian youth as a national security asset. Police Youths Summit Papers, No. 1. Abuja: UNESCO REF. This paper is a structured review of published scholarship, official data and public reports. Page ranges should be confirmed against the original publications before formal citation.
← Back to the report of activitiesUNESCO REF · Paper No. 2 · 2026
La confiance comme renseignement : légitimité, justice procédurale et pacte entre la jeunesse et la police au Nigeria
Legitimacy, procedural justice and the youth and police compact in Nigeria: why citizens share information with the police, the history and measurement of Nigeria's trust deficit, the conditions inside the institution, the global evidence and international cases on what builds trust, and a theory of change for the compact proposed at the Summit
Author UNESCO REF Series Police Youths Summit Papers, No. 2 Published 2026 Length Six pages, fifteen sections, nine tables, SDG alignment mapCover: Youth delegates and the panel in dialogue, UNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit, Abuja, 12 August 2024. Photograph: UNESCO REF Media Centre.
The UNESCO REF Nigeria Police Youths Summit took as its theme the enhancement of the value of Nigerian youth for national security intelligence. This paper argues that the decisive variable in that enhancement is trust. Information about threats flows to the police from the public only where the public regards the police as legitimate and effective, and legitimacy, the evidence shows, is earned chiefly through fair treatment. The paper defines the relevant concepts and reviews the theory and evidence on why citizens cooperate with the police, including evidence from African settings that qualifies the findings of research in wealthier countries. It measures Nigeria's trust deficit using Afrobarometer data, traces its history and its recent aggravation by the protests of 2020 and 2024, and examines the conditions inside the institution, from strength and deployment to funding, welfare and structure, that shape the conduct of officers. It reviews the global evidence on what builds trust, including a major six-country experiment that found community policing alone did not, and draws lessons from police reform in Northern Ireland, Colombia, Sierra Leone and Kenya. It examines the digital domain, the legal frame and the risks of seeking intelligence from young people without protection. It concludes with a theory of change for the youth and police compact, the conditions under which it can succeed, an evaluation design, a map to the Sustainable Development Goals and recommendations.
Keywords: police legitimacy, procedural justice, trust, community policing, intelligence-led policing, police reform, youth, Nigeria, accountability, data protection, civic space, Sustainable Development Goal 16
1. Introduction
The theme of the Summit joined two ideas that are often kept apart: the value of young people and national security intelligence. It is natural to read the theme as a request that young people provide more information to the police. This paper argues for a deeper reading. Information is the product of a relationship. Young people will share what they know about threats in their communities when, and only when, they believe that the institution receiving it will act competently, treat them fairly, protect them from reprisal and not turn the information against them or their peers. The enhancement of youth value for security intelligence is therefore, in the first place, the enhancement of trust.
The point was made at the Summit itself. Professor Olanrewaju Fagbohun, in the guest keynote, named a "trust gap" between the security agencies and the youth. The youth delegates who questioned the Inspector-General about the policing of protests, about misconduct and about the operation at the premises of the Nigeria Labour Congress were testing the institution's willingness to account for itself. And the five recommendations adopted by the Summit place transparency, oversight and protected channels alongside the request for information. This paper sets out the theory and evidence behind that design, and the conditions on which its success depends.
2. Concepts
Five concepts organise the analysis. Their definitions are summarised in Table 1 and discussed below.
| Concept | Definition used in this paper | Principal source |
|---|---|---|
| Trust | The belief that the police have the right intentions and the competence to act on them | Jackson and Bradford (2010) |
| Legitimacy | The belief that the police are entitled to exercise authority, producing a felt obligation to obey and cooperate | Tyler (2006) |
| Procedural justice | The fairness of the way authority is exercised: voice, neutrality, respect and trustworthy motives | Sunshine and Tyler (2003) |
| Community policing | A philosophy and set of practices in which the police work in partnership with communities to identify and solve problems | Bayley (1994); Gill et al. (2014) |
| Intelligence-led policing | A model in which the analysis of information guides the deployment of police resources against priority threats | Ratcliffe (2016) |
Table 1. Concepts used in this paper.
Trust and legitimacy are related but distinct. Trust is a judgement about the police as an actor: do they mean well, and can they deliver? Legitimacy is a judgement about the police as an authority: do they have the right to command, and do I have a duty to cooperate? A citizen may trust that an individual officer is honest while doubting the legitimacy of the institution, or may accept the legitimacy of the police in principle while distrusting its conduct in practice. For the purposes of security intelligence, both matter, because both shape the willingness to come forward.
Intelligence-led policing and community policing are often presented as alternatives. They are better understood as dependent on one another. Intelligence-led policing requires a flow of information, much of which can only come from communities. Community policing, done well, generates that flow as a by-product of partnership. Done badly, intelligence gathering can destroy the partnership on which it depends, by turning community contacts into informants and community meetings into surveillance. The Summit's design, which places community policing and intelligence side by side, must be read with this tension in mind.
3. Pourquoi les citoyens coopèrent avec la police
Two broad accounts explain why citizens cooperate with the police. The instrumental account holds that people cooperate when they believe the police are effective: that reporting a crime will lead to an arrest, that the police can protect them, that cooperation pays. The normative account holds that people cooperate when they believe the police are legitimate, and that legitimacy depends less on outcomes than on the fairness of the process by which the police exercise their authority.
The normative account was developed principally by Tom Tyler. In a series of studies beginning with Why People Obey the Law (first published in 1990), Tyler found that citizens' judgements of the police depended more on how they were treated than on the outcome of their encounter. People who felt they had been listened to, treated with dignity and dealt with neutrally were more likely to regard the police as legitimate, even when the outcome went against them. Sunshine and Tyler (2003), in a survey of New York residents, found that legitimacy was the strongest predictor of willingness to cooperate with the police, and that procedural justice was the strongest predictor of legitimacy, outweighing judgements of police performance and of the distribution of police services.
These findings have been replicated in many countries, but research in Africa adds an important qualification. Tankebe (2009), studying public cooperation with the police in Ghana, found that perceptions of police effectiveness were a stronger predictor of cooperation than procedural fairness. In a setting where crime is a pressing concern and the capacity of the police is in doubt, people cooperate with an institution they believe can deliver. Bradford, Huq, Jackson and Roberts (2014), studying South Africa, found that procedural justice remained strongly associated with legitimacy even in conditions of high insecurity, but that concerns about effectiveness were also prominent. Akinlabi (2017), studying young people in Nigeria, found that their perceptions of procedural justice were significantly associated with their judgements of police legitimacy, consistent with the normative account. In a related study, Akinlabi (2017) also found that experience and perception of police misconduct were associated with cynicism toward the law itself, suggesting that abusive policing damages not only trust in the police but respect for legality more broadly.
The implication for Nigeria is that neither account alone is sufficient. Young Nigerians will cooperate with the police when they believe the police will treat them fairly and when they believe the police can and will act on what they report. The compact proposed at the Summit must therefore deliver both: conduct that is fair and visibly so, and service that is effective and visibly so. A police force that is courteous but ineffective, or effective but abusive, will not receive the information it needs.
4. Le déficit de confiance au Nigeria
The distance between the police and the public in Nigeria has deep roots. The first organised police in what became Nigeria was a consular guard formed in Lagos in 1861, and the colonial police forces that followed were constituted primarily to protect colonial authority and commerce rather than to serve the population (Tamuno, 1970). The Nigeria Police Force, formed by the amalgamation of the northern and southern forces in 1930, inherited this orientation. Scholars of Nigerian policing have argued that the institution's origins in the maintenance of order for the state, rather than the protection of citizens, have shaped its culture and its relationship with the public ever since (Alemika and Chukwuma, 2000; Hills, 2008). Long periods of military rule reinforced that orientation.
The reform of the police has been the subject of many commissions and reports since the return to civilian rule in 1999. Hills (2008) observed that reform in Nigeria has often been driven by the needs of the regime rather than the demands of citizens, and that its results have been correspondingly limited. The Police Act 2020, which replaced the colonial-era Police Act, represents the most significant legislative reform of the period, and the Nigeria Police Trust Fund Act 2019 created a dedicated source of funding for equipment and training. Their effects are discussed in Sections 5 and 9.
The most reliable recent measurement of public attitudes to the police in Nigeria is the ninth round of the Afrobarometer survey, conducted in late 2022 with a nationally representative sample of 1,600 adults. Its findings, summarised in Table 2, describe a deficit of trust that is severe by any standard.
| Measure | All adults | Aged 18 to 25 |
|---|---|---|
| Trust the police "somewhat" or "a lot" | 15% | 16% |
| Do not trust the police "at all" | 50% | Not reported separately |
| Say "most" or "all" police are corrupt | 73% | 73% |
| Paid a bribe to obtain police assistance (among those who sought it) | 75% | Not reported separately |
| Paid a bribe to avoid problems in other encounters (among those with encounters) | 55% | Not reported separately |
Table 2. Public attitudes to the police in Nigeria. Source: Afrobarometer Round 9, fieldwork October to November 2022, n = 1,600, reported in Afrobarometer Dispatch No. 715 (2023). Youth figures read from the report's charts.
The police were rated the most corrupt of eleven institutions and leaders about which respondents were asked. The views of young adults are no better than those of the population as a whole, and on perceived corruption are worse than those of older Nigerians. For an institution that depends on public information, these figures describe a structural obstacle. Where only one adult in seven trusts the police, and three in four of those who seek police help report paying a bribe to get it, most citizens will hold back what they know.
Two episodes of mass protest by young Nigerians have shaped the present relationship. In October 2020 the #EndSARS protests demanded the dissolution of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a unit accused over many years of extortion, torture and extrajudicial killing. The Federal Government announced the dissolution of the unit on 11 October 2020, but the protests continued and ended in violence, including the events at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos on 20 October 2020. Judicial panels of inquiry were established in many states to hear complaints of police abuse and to recommend compensation; the Lagos panel reported in November 2021, and its findings on the events at Lekki were disputed by the Federal Government. For many young Nigerians the episode confirmed a view of the police as an institution that abused them and evaded accountability, and the uneven implementation of the panels' recommendations has kept that view alive.
The #EndBadGovernance protests of August 2024 followed fourteen months of economic hardship. Amnesty International reported in November 2024 that at least twenty-four people were killed in the course of the protests and that more than one thousand two hundred people were detained, among them minors. Whatever view is taken of the circumstances of particular incidents, the episode deepened mistrust between young people and the security services at precisely the moment the Summit was convened. The Summit should be understood as an attempt to interrupt a cycle in which protest, forceful response and mistrust reinforce one another.
5. À l'intérieur de l'institution
Discussions of police conduct often treat it as a matter of individual character, to be corrected by exhortation or dismissal. The comparative literature on police reform points instead to conditions: the numbers, deployment, pay, equipment, training, supervision and structure that shape what officers do on the street (Bayley, 2006). Young people experience the result of these conditions in every encounter. A compact that ignores them will ask officers to behave in ways their working conditions make difficult.
Figure 1. Where trust is made: the everyday encounter between an officer and the public. Photograph: Timmylegend, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.Strength and deployment. Public estimates put the personnel of the Nigeria Police Force at about 370,000 officers, serving a population of more than 220 million. The pressure on that number is increased by the long-standing practice of assigning officers to the personal protection of public officials and private individuals, which successive Inspectors-General have sought to limit and which commentators estimate to absorb a substantial share of the Force. The visible effect for young people is a police presence that is thin where they live and concentrated around the powerful, a pattern that does little to persuade them that the police exist to protect them.
Pay, welfare and equipment. Low pay, poor housing and inadequate equipment are repeatedly cited, including by police leadership, as conditions that encourage extortion at checkpoints and in stations. The Nigeria Police Trust Fund Act 2019 was enacted to provide a dedicated source of funding for equipment, training and welfare. The bribery figures in Table 2 are a measure of how much remains to be done. A youth compact cannot fix police pay; it can, however, give young people channels through which extortion is reported and seen to be acted upon.
Training and supervision. Procedural justice is a skill as well as a disposition. The experience of Colombia, discussed in Section 7, shows that training officers in communication and community engagement, combined with clear responsibility for small areas, can change both conduct and outcomes. Supervision matters as much as training: officers behave as their supervisors reward and tolerate.
Structure. Nigeria's police is a single federal force under the Constitution. Its centralised command has been defended as a safeguard against the misuse of police by state governments, and criticised as remote from local conditions. The establishment of state security structures such as Amotekun, and repeated proposals in the National Assembly to permit state police, reflect a search for policing closer to communities. Whatever the outcome of that debate, the youth compact should operate at the level where young people meet the police: the division and the state command.
| Condition | How it shapes encounters with young people | What the compact can contribute |
|---|---|---|
| Strength and deployment | Thin presence in communities; slow response; police associated with the powerful | Youth councils' input into local deployment priorities; public reporting on response |
| Pay, welfare and equipment | Incentives to extort; low morale; poor service | Protected channels for reporting extortion; recognition of officers who serve well |
| Training and supervision | Variable conduct; abuses tolerated | Procedural justice training co-designed with young people; feedback from youth surveys to supervisors |
| Structure and command | Remote decision-making; weak local accountability | Compact implemented at division and state command level, with local reporting |
Table 3. Conditions inside the institution and their bearing on the youth and police compact.
6. Ce qui construit la confiance : les données probantes
If trust is the decisive variable, the critical question is what builds it. The evidence is more sobering than much of the policy literature suggests, and it should shape the implementation of the Summit's recommendations.
Two systematic reviews provide the starting point. Mazerolle, Bennett, Davis, Sargeant and Manning (2013), reviewing evaluations of police interventions that included elements of procedural justice, found that such interventions were associated with improvements in citizens' satisfaction with the police, confidence in them and willingness to cooperate. Gill, Weisburd, Telep, Vitter and Bennett (2014), reviewing evaluations of community-oriented policing, found positive effects on citizens' satisfaction, perceptions of disorder and views of police legitimacy, but limited effects on crime and on fear of crime. Both reviews drew predominantly on studies from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
The most important evidence for countries such as Nigeria comes from a coordinated set of randomised experiments published in Science in 2021 (Blair et al., 2021). Researchers worked with police agencies in six countries of the Global South (Brazil, Colombia, Liberia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Uganda) to implement and evaluate common community policing practices: regular town hall meetings between police and citizens, foot patrols, and problem-oriented policing. The study, which surveyed thousands of citizens and hundreds of officers, found that the interventions did not, on average, improve citizens' trust in the police, increase their cooperation or reduce crime. The authors concluded that community policing practices introduced on their own, without structural reform of the police and of the incentives officers face, were unlikely to change the relationship between the police and the public.
| Study | Setting | Design | Finding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunshine and Tyler (2003) | United States | Survey of attitudes | Procedural justice the strongest driver of legitimacy; legitimacy the strongest driver of cooperation |
| Tankebe (2009) | Ghana | Survey of attitudes | Perceived effectiveness a stronger predictor of cooperation than procedural fairness |
| Mazerolle et al. (2013) | Mostly high-income countries | Systematic review of procedural justice interventions | Improvements in satisfaction, confidence and cooperation |
| GarcÃa, MejÃa and Ortega (2013) | Colombia | Randomised phasing of police training | Reductions in homicides and other crimes in high-crime areas |
| Gill et al. (2014) | Mostly high-income countries | Systematic review of community-oriented policing | Improved satisfaction and legitimacy; limited effect on crime and fear |
| Bradford et al. (2014) | South Africa | Survey of attitudes | Procedural justice linked to legitimacy even under high insecurity |
| Akinlabi (2017) | Nigeria, young people | Survey of attitudes | Procedural justice significantly associated with youth judgements of legitimacy |
| Blair et al. (2021) | Six Global South countries | Randomised trials of community policing practices | No average improvement in trust, cooperation or crime |
Table 4. Selected evidence on legitimacy, cooperation and community policing.
The evidence does not counsel despair. It counsels precision. Procedural justice matters, including for young Nigerians. But procedural justice is a property of everyday conduct by officers, not of meetings or campaigns. Community policing that consists of periodic meetings while the conduct of officers on the street is unchanged will not build trust, and may deepen cynicism. What builds trust is a sustained change in the experience of ordinary encounters, supported by accountability when conduct falls short and by effectiveness when citizens ask for help. The Summit's recommendations on transparency and oversight are, on this evidence, not supplementary to the intelligence objective but prior to it.
7. Les enseignements de quatre pays
Police reform has been attempted in many countries emerging from conflict or crises of public confidence. Four experiences are especially relevant to Nigeria, because each concerned a police force distrusted by a large part of the population, and each attempted to build cooperation with communities.
After the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998, the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, chaired by Chris Patten, reported in 1999 with 175 recommendations. The Royal Ulster Constabulary, distrusted by much of the Catholic and nationalist population, was replaced in 2001 by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Recruitment was conducted for a decade on a fifty-fifty basis between Catholic and non-Catholic candidates to change the composition of the service; an independent Police Ombudsman was established to investigate complaints; a Policing Board including elected representatives was created to hold the service to account; and local partnerships were created to give communities a voice in policing priorities. The reform did not end all mistrust, but it is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive and successful police reforms of recent decades. Its lesson is that trust followed changes in structure, composition and independent oversight, not outreach alone.
Colombia's National Plan for Community Policing by Quadrants, introduced from 2010, divided cities into small areas, each the responsibility of a fixed team of officers, and trained those officers in communication and community engagement. Because the training was rolled out in phases across police stations, researchers were able to evaluate its effect. GarcÃa, MejÃa and Ortega (2013) found that training was associated with significant reductions in homicides and other crimes in high-crime areas, and that officers reported a greater sense of responsibility and motivation. The lesson is that community engagement works when it is joined to clear responsibility for a defined area and to the skills to engage.
After the civil war of 1991 to 2002, the Sierra Leone Police, with international support, adopted a policy of local needs policing and established Local Policing Partnership Boards in which community members, including young people, met the police to set priorities and raise complaints. Studies of the reform found that the boards improved communication and gave communities a channel of influence, while noting their dependence on external funding and their uneven quality (Baker, 2006). The lesson is that local partnership structures can survive and contribute in a fragile setting, but that they require sustained funding and genuine responsiveness from the police to retain credibility.
Kenya's experience offers a cautionary lesson. Community policing initiatives since the early 2000s, and the Nyumba Kumi initiative introduced in 2013, which organised households in clusters to share information with the authorities, have been criticised for functioning as instruments of surveillance and control rather than partnership, particularly in communities already distrustful of the state. Ruteere and Pommerolle (2003) described the ambiguity of earlier Kenyan community policing as a choice between democratising security and decentralising repression. The lesson for Nigeria is that a scheme designed principally to extract information from communities, without accountability and voice, risks reproducing the very mistrust it was meant to overcome.
| Country | Reform | What worked | Lesson for the Nigerian compact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northern Ireland | Patten Commission (1999); PSNI (2001) | Changed composition, independent ombudsman, policing board, local partnerships | Trust follows structural change and independent oversight |
| Colombia | Quadrant policing plan (from 2010) | Training in engagement; fixed responsibility for small areas | Engagement must be joined to responsibility and skills |
| Sierra Leone | Local Policing Partnership Boards | Channel of influence for communities, including youth | Partnership structures need sustained funding and responsiveness |
| Kenya | Community policing; Nyumba Kumi (2013) | Mixed; criticised as surveillance | Information-gathering without voice and accountability deepens mistrust |
Table 5. Police reform and community partnership in four countries.
8. Le domaine numérique
The Summit gave particular attention to social media, and with reason. Young Nigerians conduct much of their social and civic life online, and the platforms they use are channels both of protective information and of harm: incitement, misinformation, impersonation and fraud. Three questions arise for the youth and police compact.
Digital reporting. Secure digital channels can lower the cost and risk of reporting. A young person who would not walk into a police station may report a threat through an application or a messaging line, particularly if anonymity is assured. The Force already operates a Complaint Response Unit that receives complaints against officers through telephone and social media channels, which shows that young people will use digital channels to report when they believe action will follow. The Summit's second recommendation calls for channels for community information. Their design must answer several questions in advance: how anonymity will be protected technically and legally; how reports will be verified before action is taken, so that the channel is not used to settle private scores; how reporters will be informed of what happened; and how the data will be stored, accessed and deleted in compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023.
Countering incitement and misinformation. Young people are well placed to identify and counter incitement and false information, particularly in the fast-moving conditions of a crisis. Their contribution is most credible when it is independent: a young fact-checker or community moderator is trusted precisely because he or she is not an official. Partnerships in this domain should therefore support independent youth initiatives in digital literacy and verification rather than recruit young people as covert agents of official messaging.
The line between security and opinion. The most important principle in the digital domain is the line between countering incitement to violence and policing lawful opinion. Nigerian law has been tested on this line. Section 24 of the Cybercrimes Act 2015, on cyberstalking, was used against journalists and critics, and in 2022 the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States found the provision inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression and directed its amendment; the Act was amended in 2024. A digital security partnership with young people that was perceived as surveillance of their political views would destroy the trust it was meant to build, as the Kenyan experience in Section 7 warns. The partnership must be bounded by law, by published policy and by independent oversight.
9. Le cadre juridique et institutionnel
The youth and police compact operates within a legal frame that is, in important respects, more favourable than practice. Section 214 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, establishes the Nigeria Police Force. The Constitution guarantees the rights to dignity, personal liberty, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and these rights define the boundaries within which any security partnership must operate.
The Police Act 2020 replaced the Police Act of the colonial period. It sets out the duties of the Force in terms that include the protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens, gives statutory expression to partnership with communities, and contains provisions on the treatment of suspects and arrested persons. The Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 establishes the Nigeria Data Protection Commission and sets binding standards for the processing of personal data, which apply to any digital reporting channel. The Police Service Commission, established under the Constitution, holds responsibility for appointment, promotion and discipline below the rank of Inspector-General, and is therefore central to accountability for misconduct. The National Human Rights Commission receives complaints of human rights violations, including by the police, and the Force's own Complaint Response Unit receives complaints from the public.
| Instrument or institution | Relevance to the compact |
|---|---|
| Constitution, 1999 (section 214 and Chapter IV) | Establishes the Force; guarantees the rights within which the compact must operate |
| Police Act 2020 | Duties of the Force, partnership with communities, treatment of suspects |
| Nigeria Police Trust Fund Act 2019 | Dedicated funding for equipment, training and welfare |
| Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 | Binding standards for any digital reporting channel |
| Cybercrimes Act 2015, as amended 2024 | Defines the boundary between online crime and protected expression |
| Police Service Commission | Discipline of officers; accountability for misconduct |
| National Human Rights Commission | Independent complaints of rights violations |
| NPF Complaint Response Unit | Internal channel for public complaints, including by social media |
Table 6. The legal and institutional frame of the youth and police compact.
The frame matters for the compact in two ways. First, it provides the standards against which the conduct of the partnership can be judged, and the institutions through which complaints can be pursued. A youth partnership that publicises these standards and channels, and helps young people to use them, contributes directly to accountability. Second, it provides the legal basis for protecting young people who share information. Protection of reporters should be grounded in published policy and in law, not in the goodwill of individual officers.
10. Une théorie du changement pour le pacte
The evidence reviewed in this paper allows the Summit's recommendations to be assembled into a theory of change. It is set out in Table 7. Its distinctive feature is sequence. Requests for information come last, after the conditions of trust have begun to be met.
| Stage | What is done | What it produces | Evidence base |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Accountability first | Independent oversight of encounters with young people; accessible complaints; published outcomes | Visible correction of misconduct | Northern Ireland; Blair et al. (2021) on the need for structural change |
| 2. Fair everyday conduct | Training and supervision in procedural justice; incentives aligned with fair treatment | Changed experience of ordinary encounters | Mazerolle et al. (2013); Akinlabi (2017); GarcÃa et al. (2013) |
| 3. Voice with influence | Youth advisory councils at state and division level with documented influence | Young people see their views change decisions | Hart (1992); Sierra Leone partnership boards; UNSCR 2250 |
| 4. Effective response | Responsive service when young people seek help; farm patrols and visible protection | Belief that cooperation leads to action | Tankebe (2009); Bradford et al. (2014) |
| 5. Protected channels | Secure, anonymous, verified reporting compliant with data protection law | Safe flow of community information | Ratcliffe (2016); Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 |
| 6. Opportunity | Skills, employment and enterprise linked to the partnership | A stake in the order that security protects | Blattman and Annan (2016); Paper No. 1 |
| Outcome | Rising trust and legitimacy among young people, increasing voluntary cooperation and information, earlier warning of threats, and a measurable contribution of young people to national security |
Table 7. A theory of change for the youth and police compact.
The sequence is the lesson of the evidence. Programmes that begin by asking young people for information, before giving them reason to believe they will be treated fairly and protected, are likely to receive little and to confirm suspicion, as the Kenyan experience suggests. Programmes that begin with visible accountability and fair treatment create the conditions in which cooperation becomes rational and, in time, normal. The stages overlap in practice, but the order of emphasis should be preserved.
11. Conditions et risques
The theory of change holds only under certain conditions, and it carries risks that must be managed. Table 8 sets them out.
| Risk | How it arises | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Reprisal against reporters | Identities of young reporters become known to those reported | Technical and legal anonymity; restricted access; protection protocols; no public identification |
| Erosion of peer legitimacy | Youth leaders are seen as agents of the police | Independence of youth organisations; partnership in the open; no covert tasking of peer leaders |
| Malicious or false reports | Channels used to settle private disputes or to target opponents | Verification before action; sanctions for knowingly false reports; audit |
| Surveillance of lawful opinion | Digital partnership extended to political expression | Published scope limited to incitement and crime; independent oversight; legal review |
| Tokenism | Councils convened but without influence | Documented decisions; published minutes; response obligations |
| Exclusion of young women | Programmes designed around young men | Targets for participation and leadership; attention to gender-based violence |
| Rollback after leadership changes | Partnership dependent on individuals | Institutionalisation in policy, budget and standing procedures |
Table 8. Principal risks of the youth and police compact and their mitigation.
Two of these risks deserve emphasis. The first is the erosion of peer legitimacy. Paper No. 1 identifies the standing of youth leaders among their peers as one of the most valuable contributions young people make to security. That standing depends on independence. A youth leader who is known to work openly with the police on prevention and mediation may retain it; one who is believed to be passing information covertly will lose it, and may be endangered. The compact should therefore distinguish clearly between open partnership with youth organisations and the confidential handling of individual reports, and should never task youth leaders covertly. The second is rollback. Partnerships between security institutions and civil society often lapse when their champions move on. The Summit's fifth recommendation, institutionalising dialogue as a standing mechanism, is the principal safeguard, and it should be supported by provision in policy and budget.
12. Mesurer la confiance
A partnership whose central objective is trust must measure trust. Afrobarometer provides a national benchmark at intervals of two to three years. More frequent measurement can be obtained through dedicated surveys of young people in states where the compact is implemented, using validated questions on trust, legitimacy, procedural justice and willingness to cooperate drawn from the research literature. Administrative data provide complementary indicators: complaints received and upheld, reports received through protected channels and acted upon, and outcomes of protests and other public order events.
The most credible evaluation design would introduce the compact in phases, beginning with pilot states as the Summit recommended, and compare changes in pilot areas with changes in comparable areas where implementation begins later, as Colombia did with its quadrant training. Such a design allows the effect of the compact to be distinguished from national trends, and the Blair et al. (2021) study is a reminder that well-intended programmes can have no measurable effect. Only rigorous evaluation will reveal whether the compact is working. The indicators should be aligned, wherever possible, with the official indicators of SDG 16 set out in Section 13, so that national reporting on the Goals captures the results.
13. Carte d'alignement sur les objectifs de développement durable
The youth and police compact is, at its core, a contribution to Sustainable Development Goal 16: peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice for all, and effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. Several of the official indicators of SDG 16 measure precisely the conditions this paper identifies as the foundations of trust: whether people report crimes to the authorities, whether they pay bribes, whether they are satisfied with public services and whether they believe decision-making is responsive. The compact also contributes to Goals 5, 11 and 17.
SDG 16 SDG 5 SDG 11 SDG 17| Goal and target | Argument of this paper | Official SDG indicator |
|---|---|---|
| SDG 16, target 16.3: rule of law and equal access to justice | Trust as the condition of reporting (Sections 1 to 3) | 16.3.1 Proportion of victims of violence in the previous 12 months who reported their victimisation to competent authorities |
| SDG 16, target 16.5: substantially reduce corruption and bribery | Bribery as a driver of the trust deficit (Sections 4 and 5) | 16.5.1 Proportion of persons who had contact with a public official and paid a bribe, or were asked for a bribe |
| SDG 16, target 16.6: effective, accountable and transparent institutions | Accountability first; conditions inside the institution (Sections 5 and 10) | 16.6.2 Proportion of population satisfied with their last experience of public services |
| SDG 16, target 16.7: responsive, inclusive and participatory decision-making | Youth advisory councils with influence (Section 10) | 16.7.2 Proportion of population who believe decision-making is inclusive and responsive, by age |
| SDG 16, target 16.10: public access to information and fundamental freedoms | The line between security and opinion (Section 8) | 16.10.1 Verified cases of killing, detention and other harmful acts against journalists, trade unionists and human rights advocates |
| SDG 16, target 16.a: strengthen national institutions to prevent violence | The compact as institutional capacity for prevention (Section 10) | 16.a.1 Existence of independent national human rights institutions in compliance with the Paris Principles |
| SDG 5, target 5.2: eliminate violence against women and girls | Inclusion of young women; attention to gender-based violence (Section 11) | 5.2.1 and 5.2.2 Proportion of women and girls subjected to violence |
| SDG 11, target 11.7: safe and inclusive public spaces | Effective response and visible protection (Sections 5 and 10) | 11.7.2 Proportion of persons victim of physical or sexual harassment in the previous 12 months |
| SDG 17, target 17.17: effective public and civil society partnerships | The UNESCO REF and Nigeria Police Force partnership; standing dialogue (Section 14) | 17.17.1 measures only infrastructure partnerships; progress is reported through the annual public report proposed in Section 14 |
Table 9. SDG alignment map for Paper No. 2. Indicator wording from the global indicator framework of the United Nations Statistical Commission.
14. Recommandations
The evidence reviewed in this paper supports the five recommendations of the Summit and suggests how each should be implemented.
Establish youth advisory councils first in pilot states, at state command and division level, with published terms of reference that specify the decisions on which they must be consulted, an obligation on the police to respond in writing to their recommendations, priorities drawn from the security landscape of each zone, and the participation of young women in at least equal numbers.
Launch no channel until its anonymity, verification and data protection arrangements have been published and reviewed against the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023. Build on the existing Complaint Response Unit, and inform reporters of the outcome of their reports wherever this is safe.
Publish, at regular intervals, data on complaints involving young people, their investigation and their outcome. Build training and supervision in procedural justice into the routine management of officers who deal most often with young people, drawing on the Colombian model of training joined to responsibility for defined areas.
Link the youth agenda of the Federal Government announced at the Summit, and the programmes of UNESCO REF under SIP-ALPHA, to the security partnership, so that young people engaged in prevention and mediation also have access to skills, employment and enterprise support.
Convene the Summit annually on the United Nations International Youth Day, with regional dialogues between national convenings, and present at each convening a public report on progress against the indicators of Section 12 and the SDG indicators of Table 9.
15. Limites, programme de recherche et conclusion
This paper is a structured review of published scholarship, survey data, legal instruments and public reports. It does not present new primary data. Much of the evidence on procedural justice and community policing comes from countries whose police institutions differ greatly from Nigeria's; the African studies cited qualify that evidence but are few. International cases are summarised briefly and their transferability to Nigeria is a matter of judgement. Figures on police strength and deployment are public estimates rather than published official statistics. The Afrobarometer youth figures are read from charts and are less precise than the headline figures. The account of the protests of 2020 and 2024 relies on public reports whose findings remain, in part, contested.
Four questions deserve priority. What specific experiences most strongly shape the trust of young Nigerians in the police, and how do they differ between urban and rural areas and between zones? Under what conditions do young Nigerians share information with the police, and what do they fear in doing so? What has been the effect of the Police Act 2020 and the Police Trust Fund on the experience of young people in their encounters with the police? And how have the recommendations of the #EndSARS panels been implemented, and with what effect on trust? UNESCO REF invites research partners, including the Nigeria Police Force, to work with it on these questions.
The theme of the Summit, enhancing the value of Nigerian youth for national security intelligence, rests on a truth that the evidence confirms: no security institution can know what it is not told, and in Nigeria much of what needs to be known is known by the young. But the evidence also confirms that information follows trust, and trust follows conduct, and conduct follows conditions. Young people share what they know with an institution they regard as fair, effective and accountable, and withhold it from one they do not. Nigeria's trust deficit is severe, with deep historical roots and recent wounds. It will not be closed by meetings or campaigns alone, as the international evidence makes plain. It can be narrowed by a sustained change in the experience of ordinary encounters, supported by accountability, voice, protection and opportunity, in that order of emphasis. The Summit of 12 August 2024 set out a compact with these elements. If it is carried into practice, the trust it builds will itself become the nation's most valuable source of security intelligence.
Cite as: UNESCO REF (2026). Trust as intelligence: legitimacy, procedural justice and the youth and police compact in Nigeria. Police Youths Summit Papers, No. 2. Abuja: UNESCO REF. This paper is a structured review of published scholarship, survey data, legal instruments and public reports. Page ranges should be confirmed against the original publications before formal citation.
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