Africa is not at a crossroads; it is at a reckoning. Sixty eight years after the first flag of independence was hoisted in Ghana in 1957, the continent remains shackled, not by colonial masters, but by the calcified grip of gerontocracy.
Liberation heroes who once embodied sacrifice now parade as if time itself were their servant, clinging to power with the arrogance of immortality.
From Harare to Kampala, Nairobi to Yaoundé, Kigali to Abidjan, the roll call of ageing leaders is a litany of defiance, not against imperialism, but against biology itself.
Generational renewal is not a polite reformist whisper. Instead, it is a biological command.
Mortality is the one law no liberation stalwart can repeal, yet across Africa, succession planning is demonised as betrayal, mentorship dismissed as weakness, and youth inclusion branded as subversion. This is not governance; it is rot, and a post-independence order that mistakes longevity for legitimacy has poisoned the very soil of our politics. Renewal will not come through slogans or nostalgia anymore; instead, it must be structured, deliberate, and anchored in succession frameworks that groom rather than suffocate the next generation. Anything less is a betrayal of history and a denial of the future.
Africa’s decisive force
The decisive force in Africa’s looming elections is not the octogenarian elite clinging to power, but the post-independence generation in the 15 to 55 age bracket that forms the overwhelming majority of our population.
This generation is digitally literate, globally connected, and politically restless. They are no longer willing to sit in the gallery of history as spectators while the stage is monopolised by ageing actors reciting the same tired script of liberation nostalgia.
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The year 2026 must not be another year of hollow slogans about “sacrifice” and “struggle.” Those contracts of the liberation era have expired, and they are now tired relics that no longer bind a generation born free yet condemned to live shackled by unemployment, corruption, and authoritarian nostalgia.
The youth who are in the majority are now demanding new instruments of legitimacy in the form of youth-led political contracts that redefine the covenant between citizens and state.
These contracts are not rhetorical ornaments; instead, they are frameworks of accountability, inclusion, and renewal, and they insist that governments deliver results, not excuses; equity, not patronage; transparency, not secrecy.
This generation, if awakened and properly given literacy in the business of politics and development, is going to be Africa’s decisive force because it embodies both demographic weight and intellectual firepower.
It is the generation that tweets in real time, organises across borders, and refuses to be silenced by the stale intimidation of gerontocracy. It is the generation that understands that democracy is not a museum of liberation relics but a living system that must evolve or collapse, and it is the generation that will decide whether Africa’s politics remains a mausoleum of ageing strongmen or becomes a laboratory of renewal.
Youth-led political contracts
Youth-led political contracts are going to be at the forefront of this reawakening, and they are not the polite manifestos of student unions or the decorative charters of NGOs.
They are social covenants, forged in the crucible of frustration and defiance, by young Africans determined to renegotiate the very terms of citizenship and governance.
These contracts are not elite-imposed; instead, they are bottom-up instruments of renewal, drafted by those who refuse to inherit a broken system without rewriting its rules.
They demand accountability, inclusion, and generational legitimacy, and they are practical, not rhetorical, binding and not ornamental.
These contracts are accountability tools, and they articulate specific demands, electoral reforms to dismantle rigged systems, anti-corruption measures to puncture patronage networks, climate justice to confront ecological collapse, and they establish mechanisms to monitor compliance.
They are both symbolic and practical: symbolic in their audacity to challenge the legitimacy of entrenched leadership, practical in their strategies to mobilise voter registration, civic education, and protest organisation.
They are also instruments of mentorship and grooming. They shift youth engagement away from escapist popular culture, where drugs, alcohol, and celebrity distractions masquerade as solutions, and redirect it toward developmental participation.
They prepare young Africans not merely to inherit power but to wield it responsibly, to lead nations and the continent with vision and competence.
In Zimbabwe, Uganda, Cameroon, and the Ivory Coast, where gerontocratic leaders dominate and any discussions on succession are treated as treason, youth contracts will emerge as frameworks to reshape governance.
They will compel the youth to demand transparency in systems that thrive on secrecy, equity in societies fractured by privilege, and they will also demand responsiveness to urgent realities such as mass unemployment, collapsing education systems, climate change, and digital freedoms under siege.
These contracts are going to be the scaffolding of Africa’s renewal, the instruments through which the youth majority will force governments to deliver dignity rather than excuses.
Africa’s gerontocracies are not simply political systems; they are cultural prisons that suffocate imagination, agency, and renewal.
They are mausoleums of ageing power, where leaders cling to office as if the continent’s survival were tethered to their breath. This myth, that Africa cannot endure without its liberation-era patriarchs, is both insulting and dangerous. It infantilises the youth majority, treating them as perpetual wards of the state, and denies them the dignity of agency in shaping their own future.
It is a myth that has calcified into a doctrine of fear, designed to silence succession debates and criminalise generational renewal.
However, history and biology are unforgiving.
No leader, however lionised, can defy mortality, and the refusal to step aside is not strength. It is a weakness masquerading as indispensability, and it is the arrogance of men who mistake longevity for legitimacy and nostalgia for governance.
Youth-led political contracts are the antidote as instruments of renegotiation, rewriting the obligations between governments and citizens where states have failed to deliver welfare, dignity, and justice. They insist that leadership is not eternal, that legitimacy must be renewed, and that governance must reflect contemporary realities rather than the fading memories of liberation struggle.
These contracts are not polite petitions; but they are declarations of intent by a generation that refuses to be silenced. They demand transparency in systems built on secrecy, equity in societies fractured by privilege, and responsiveness to crises, unemployment, education collapse, climate change, and digital freedoms, that gerontocracies dismiss as distractions.
The era of gerontocracy is a dead end. The era of youth-led contracts is the path to renewal. Africa must choose whether to remain imprisoned in the mausoleum of ageing leaders or to embrace the covenant of its youth majority, who are ready to lead, ready to govern, and ready to demand dignity.
Generational renewal is fraught with obstacles that demand clarity and strategy. Youth-led political contracts risk tokenism, as governments parade inclusion without real reform, diluting their radical intent. Fragmentation is another danger: Africa’s diverse youth may scatter energy into silos, weakening collective power. Entrenched elites also resist, branding demands as destabilising to preserve gerontocracy. Sustainability is crucial; protests alone cannot endure without institutionalisation, youth councils, policy seats, and succession frameworks, yet these challenges pale beside the greater threat of stagnation. Without renewal, Africa faces decay under ageing leaders and expired contracts. Unity, institutional depth, and accountability are not optional; they are survival.
The reckoning
Africa’s reckoning is no longer distant; it is urgent and unavoidable. The question is not if generational renewal will come, but whether it will be orderly and dignified or chaotic and forced by collapse. Leaders must accept they are not immortal; refusing to mentor successors or institutionalise renewal is weakness, not strength.
Youth, the continent’s restless, digitally mobilised majority, know liberation-era contracts have expired and rhetoric cannot deliver jobs, freedoms, or dignity. The year 2026 must be the year youth-led political contracts dominate, demanding frameworks for renewal that history and biology insist upon. The choice is stark: stagnation or survival, gerontocracy or generational legitimacy. Renewal will come, either embraced with dignity or dragged in by collapse.
- Muzengeza is a political risk analyst and urban strategist offering incisive insight on urban planning, infrastructure, leadership succession, and governance reform across Africa’s evolving post‑liberation urban landscapes.
