On this International Youth Day, I send a direct message to the President of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), Comrade Solomon Adodo. I know you are trying your best, and I must say that your mandate is from God. But, Comrade, look around, see the young ones driven to prison because they were never taught the basics of nation-building. See how the system has crushed many dreams.
Those who read with night candles, believing that education would lift their families from poverty, now watch as they become the laughing stock of content creators who never understood the value of schooling. This is not just failure, it is a national tragedy.
We need an assembly of 20 million Nigerian youth to begin the work of rebuilding. We must unite across every community, campus, and city. Every youth organization in Nigeria must wake from hibernation. The time for sleeping through the storm is over.
What is wrong is clear:
Education has been devalued.
Opportunities have been captured by the few.
Youth voices are too often reduced to slogans instead of solutions.
The way to correct this is also clear:
Rebuild trust in education by linking it directly to job creation.
Demand youth inclusion in every level of policy-making.
Organize, not as rivals, but as one national force for progress.
This generation must choose to be remembered not as victims of a broken system, but as the architects of a new Nigeria.
Abioye Tosin Lawrence is the publisher of Oriontimes Online Newspaper and author of the upcoming memoir Voices from the Fire: My Journey Through a Hollow Empire.
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