From Resilience to Relevance: What Nigeria’s Youth Owe Their Elders - By Abioye Tosin Lawrence

....let’s stop acting like saving Nigeria is someone else’s job

In a country where every birthday becomes a campaign rally and every funeral a political summit, one thing is clear: Nigeria’s past refuses to be buried. And maybe, just maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

We love to mock our elders. Call them “recycled,” “expired,” “the problem.” Yet many of these so-called expired elders once dared the most dreadful forces under military dictatorship. While some of us are still arguing over the best lighting for a protest photo, they were facing bullets, exile, and prison. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for instance, didn’t just stumble into Aso Rock; he walked through fire for the very democracy we now scroll through apathetically.

The truth is inconvenient: Nigeria’s older generation, for all their flaws (and Lord knows there are many), displayed a resilience most of us haven’t yet tested. Yes, some cashed out. Some betrayed the ideals. But let’s not act like hashtags alone have toppled any regime in this country. Behind every change is structure. Behind every movement is money. And behind every lasting legacy is patience.

The young generation is energetic, brilliant, and wonderfully impatient. We want things now; transparency, fairness, opportunity. But if we continue believing that politics is just vibes and viral tweets, we’ll keep losing to the same old cabals who understand two things better than anyone else: power and patience.

We say we want change, yet many young Nigerians would rather spend ₦500,000 on a birthday shoot than contribute to a candidate’s campaign. We celebrate online clowns and cancel thinkers. Meanwhile, true heroes, living and gone, are only recognized after state dinners.

Let’s be honest: money has hijacked politics. Politics has become the easiest path to money. And round and round we go. Until we break this deadly dance, until we treat public service as sacred 'not lucrative, we will keep ending up where we started: angry, broke, and brilliantly underachieving.

So what should the youth do?

First, stop mocking the past. Study it. There’s gold in it. Second, build alliances, not just Twitter threads. Tap into the experience of those who know how to navigate the murky waters of Nigerian politics. Some of them are still powerful, still connected, and surprisingly willing to mentor, if we just show respect instead of resentment.

Finally, let’s stop acting like saving Nigeria is someone else’s job. If the good ones don’t enter the system, the bad ones will keep upgrading theirs.

Nigeria doesn’t just need young people with loud voices.

It needs young people with long plans.