Youth Development Minister Ayodele Olawande,37, announced September 28 that those who consider themselves young— and aren’t butterfingers—could start registering on the National Youth Data Bank (NYDB).

Meaning: if you’re already managing well your raging adolescent hormones at 15 or you’re midway to your prime age of 40—congrats! You make the cut, per the Nigerian Youth Policy standard.

“You are addressed as a youth in Nigeria once you are 15, and once you are 35, you still remain a youth,” Oluyinka Akerele, CEO, POGMA Nigeria Limited, the technical partner handling the data bank, said.

The registration covers those youths in the formal and the informal sectors, wherever they live or work or study, including those in agriculture, sports, and others in tech or the creative industry.

What’s new?

The project handlers said the idea is to close the gap between Nigeria and its youthful bulge, more than 70 percent big, according to the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG). It will also tweak up the process of planning and implementing youth programmes.

For all the ewe dressed as lamb

The database, in some sense, has come as a filter. “It would help answer critical questions such as ‘Who are our young people?’, ‘Where are they?’, ‘What can they do?’, and ‘What opportunities do they need?’” Olawande said.