At the time of writing, Bola Tinubu had just been named Nigeria’s President-Elect, after the wizened former governor of Lagos, Africa’s largest city, had shrugged off challenges from contenders who included perennial loser Atiku Abubaker in elections held on February 25.

Tinubu is officially aged 70 but sceptics say he is an age cheat who is actually an octogenarian, basing this claim on alleged court documents from the US, where he once faced illicit drugs charges.

But Tinubu is not the only old timer at the helm of a country in Africa, a continent that boasts the world’s youngest population. In sub-Saharan African countries – the 46 countries that are fully or partially located south of the Sahara Desert – about 70% of the population is under the age of 30, according to United Nations estimates. Some countries – such as Niger, Uganda and Angola – had a median age below 16 years in 2022. This means that at this age point one half of the population was younger than 16 and the other half older.

Despite Africa’s population being overwhelmingly young, mostly older people continue to lead African countries. In Angola, whose median age is 15.9 years, the President is 68 years of age, while Niger, with a median age of 14.8 years, is governed by a 63-year-old President. But these two gentlemen are spring chickens in comparison with the 78-year-old Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda, where the median age is 15.7 years.

Also in the Old Timers League are Cameroon’s Paul Biya (90), Namibia’s Hage Geingob (81), Cote d’Ivoire’s Alassane Ouattara (81), Equatorial Guinea’s Obiang Nguema (80), Zimbabwe’s Emmerson Mnangagwa (80), Ghana’s Nana Akufo-Addo (78), and Djibouti’s Ismail Guelleh (75).

Our own Oom Cyril is not a youngster either – he celebrates his seventy-first birthday on November 17 this year and will be a ripe 76 years old when his second five-year term as State President ends circa April 2029. Do I hear someone saying it’s not a given that the African National Congress (ANC) will triumph in elections due in the first half of next year, considering its dismal performance in the 2021 local government elections, which saw its national tally dip below 50% for the first time? Well, my take is that even if the ANC is forced into a coalition after the 2024 elections, it will be the senior partner in that arrangement and will therefore nominate the State President.

What is evident from all this is that, apart from the election of the then 41-year-old Abiy Ahmed as the Prime Minister of Ethiopia in 2018, there hasn’t really been a generational change of the guard in African politics.

It’s bad enough that young people are not given a chance to lead, but my biggest gripe is with fellows like Biya, Nguema and Museveni, who have led their countries for decades and don’t seem to be about to retire. I wish they had listened to the resignation speech of former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in January this year. Ardern, who assumed office as a 37-year-old in 2017, said: “I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple.

“I am human; politicians are human. We give all that we can for as long as we can. And then it’s time. And for me, it’s time.”

Arden is only 42. After only five years and a few months at the helm, she was exhausted and called it quits. Where do our old leaders get the stamina to carry on and on? In my view, Africa’s youth must share in our countries’ governance, given that they are in the majority.