Editor's Review

  • The poll comes amid increased campaigns to popularize the BBI report.
  • Youth want to the BBI to focus on job creation. 

A new poll now shows that 70 percent of Kenya’s youth will oppose the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) referendum.

The research released by Emerging Leaders Foundation (ELF) Africa indicates that 40 percent of the male youth would oppose it while 21 percent would support it.

Elsewhere, another 30 percent of the female youth would oppose the BBI referendum and 9 percent would vote in favor.

70 percent of the poll participants said they did not get a chance to personally, or through an organization, give their views to the BBI Steering Taskforce that was moving around the country while 30 percent did.

50 percent of them have read the BBI report, 12 percent have not read it while a further 38 percent have only perused a few sections.

54 percent of the respondents said they came across the BBI report on WhatsApp, 18 percent on Twitter, 5 percent on Facebook, 4 percent on Email, 10 percent have the hard copy while 9 percent have not even seen it.

According to the report, 47 percent of the respondents do not think the BBI report is youth-friendly while only 8 percent believe it is.

Their proposed amendments to the BBI report include; job creation (9 percent), gender equality (7 percent), reduction in number of elected representatives (33 percent), and tougher rules for the corrupt (4 percent).