The Young Progressives Party (YPP) is a

social-democratic Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, socia ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

. The party was created to challenge the two major contemporary parties in Nigeria, the People's Democratic Party and the

All Progressives Congress The All Progressives Congress (APC) is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Nigeria, along with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Founded on 6 February 2013 from a merger of Nigeria's three largest opposition parties, t ...

. In its manifesto, it called for concerted efforts to improve welfare, fight for social justice and provide equality of opportunities for all citizens in Nigeria. The Young Progressive Party won one seat out of the 109 seats in the

Nigerian Senate The Senate is the upper chamber of Nigeria's bicameral legislature, the National Assembly. The National Assembly (popularly referred to as NASS) is the nation's legislature and has the power to make laws, as summarized in chapter one, sectio ...

during the 2019 general elections.

History

The Young Progressive Party was formed in 2016 as a

political association A political organization is any organization that involves itself in the political process, including political parties, non-governmental organizations, and special interest advocacy groups. Political organizations are those engaged in politica ...

. On 7 June 2017, the association was officially registered as a political party having met all the requirements of being a party in

. The party was formed on the principles of

social democracy Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

and inclusive governance. The National chairman of the party is Bishop Amakiri and the party has over 30 million members across Nigeria.

2019

Professor

Kingsley Moghalu Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu OON (born 7 May 1963) is a Nigerian political economist and the President of the African School of Governance (ASG), a pan-African graduate school focused on public policy and governance based in Kigali, Rwanda. He serve ...

, former Deputy Governor of the

Central Bank of Nigeria The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is the central bank and apex monetary authority of Nigeria established by the CBN Act of 1958 and commenced operations on 1 July 1959. The major regulatory objectives of the bank as stated in the CBN Act are t ...

, emerged as the presidential candidate of the party with Mrs. Umma Getso, the Deputy National Chairman of YPP, a political activist and business entrepreneur who previously co-founded the National Progressive Movement (NPM) as his vice-presidential running mate for the 2019 elections.

Wole Soyinka Wole Soyinka , (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian author, best known as a playwright and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collections, twenty five plays and five memoirs. He also wrote two transla ...

, foremost playwright, and Citizen Forum, a group convened by him, supported the bid of Kingsley Moghalu. The

Ooni of Ife The Ooni of Ile-Ife (Ọọ̀ni of Ilè-Ifẹ̀) is the traditional ruler of Ifẹ, Ilé-Ifẹ̀. The Ooni dynasty existed before the reign of Oduduwa which historians have argued to have been between the 7th-9th centuries A.D. After the de ...

ahead of the presidential election spoke on how passionate Moghalu was during his presidential campaign. The party condemned the irregularities that marred the 2019 presidential election stressing that it was rigged in favor of the ruling

(APC). The party said that “the intimidation, maiming and killings of about forty citizens in some States of the Federation such as

Rivers A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of its course if it ru ...

Lagos Lagos ( ; ), or Lagos City, is a large metropolitan city in southwestern Nigeria. With an upper population estimated above 21 million dwellers, it is the largest city in Nigeria, the most populous urban area on the African continent, and on ...

Kaduna Kaduna is the capital city of Kaduna State, and the former political capital of Northern Nigeria. It is located in north-western Nigeria, on the Kaduna River. It is a trade center and a major transportation hub as the gateway to northern state ...

and

Bayelsa Bayelsa is a state in the South South region of Nigeria, located in the core of the Niger Delta. Bayelsa State was created in 1996 and was carved out from Rivers State, making it one of the newest states in the federation. The capital, Yenagoa, ...

where we can confirm that there was massive rigging by both the APC and

PDP PDP may refer to: Computing and technology * Packet Data Protocol in wireless GPRS/HSDPA networks * Parallel distributed processing in Connectionism#Parallel distributed processing, connectionism * Plasma display panel * Policy Decision Point in t ...

will make the 2019 elections one of the most violent in our recent history." Ifeanyi Ubah was the flag-bearer for the Young Progressive Party representing Anambra South senatorial district. On 25 February 2019, he was announced winner of the

Anambra Anambra () is a state in Nigeria. It is located in the South-eastern region of the country. The state was created on 27 August 1991. Anambra state is bounded by Delta State to the west, Imo State and Rivers State to the south, Enugu State to ...

south senatorial seat in the Nigerian Senate making him the first candidate to have won a seat in the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

under the YPP. In 2018, Princess Adebisi Ogunsanya stood as Lagos state gubernatorial flag-bearer for the party. In 2019, she emerged as the leading female gubernatorial candidate in Lagos state, coming 8th of the 46 gubernatorial candidates in Lagos state.

2021

Senator Ifeanyi Ubah ran for the 2021 Anambra State gubernatorial election that occurred on September 19, 2020. Ubah was nominated by acclamation in an uncontested primary before being cleared to run by the national YPP leadership. Ubah was very optimistic that his party would beat others mercilessly, he however allayed the fears of Nigerians that the South-East crisis would disrupt the election. He came in fourth for the Anambra state gubernatorial election with a total number of 21,261 votes.

2022

In 2022, many important politicians and statesmen defected from both the

and APC to YPP due to the ineffectiveness of both parties. Alhaji Waziri Yakub Gobir, former financier, All Progressives Congress, APC,decamped to the Young Progressives Party, YPP while also seeking nomination as the party's standard-bearer for the Kwara's governorship election in 2023. He declared that politics in the state and country had been reduced to a game for the highest bidder. He was a key player in the ‘Otoge’ Movement that ousted the leading opposition party, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) from Kwara State. Chief Uche Okafor, the ex-Anambra commissioner of commerce, under

Willie Obiano Willie Obiano (born August 8, 1955) is a Nigerian politician, banker and technocrat. He was the 4th Governor of Anambra State from 17 March 2014 to 17 March 2022. Early life Governor Obiano was born at Aguleri, a town in Anambra State, East ...

, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), defected to the Young Progressives Party (YPP). Adamu Garba II, a former chieftain of the All Progressives Congress also abandoned the party over the cost of its nomination forms and joined the YPP. Ahead of the 2022 Nigeria-Ghana decider match, the Young Progressives Party, YPP, distributed 500 free tickets to members of its party and young Nigerians who could not afford to get themselves a ticket.

Party symbols

The logo of the party is a white open door on top of a map of Nigeria, which is coloured yellow, red, and green. The inscription of the party's acronym, YPP, is in white, and a green outline is present around the shape of the door. The party's flag is a white background with the party's logo image in the centre, with the party's name in full below the logo. Three thin rectangular bars coloured in the official party colours are located on the right side of the flag (stretching from top to bottom), in the order (from left to right) of yellow, red, green.

Electoral history

Presidential elections

House of Representatives and Senate elections

References

External links

YPP Official website
{{Nigerian political parties 2017 establishments in Nigeria Political parties established in 2017 Political parties in Nigeria Social democratic parties in Nigeria