Younger Nigerians Inherit, Promote Only Failure and Hardship, A Memory That Will Haunt Them Forever - Abioye Tosin Lawrence

 

The tragedy of Nigeria is no longer just about the corruption of its leaders; it is about the memory being forced upon its youth. For more than six decades since independence, every generation of young Nigerians has been promised hope but handed hardship, promised progress but forced into failure. Today, younger Nigerians are not merely witnesses to these failures,  they are inheritors and, tragically, promoters of a culture that normalizes hardship as the only reality. This memory will haunt them forever.

We live in a nation where young people know more about scarcity than abundance, more about unemployment than opportunity, and more about political betrayal than patriotic trust. The daily rhythm of life for millions of youth is not marked by dreams of innovation or creativity, but by queues at embassies for visas, by struggles to escape through “japa,” and by a survival instinct that rewards shortcuts over hard work. The tragedy is that what should have been rejected is now being recycled as the standard.

When a society teaches its youth that corruption is a ladder, that loyalty to failed politicians is a survival strategy, and that silence in the face of injustice is wisdom, then that society is not only corrupt , it is cursed. Young Nigerians, who should be building the future, are instead compelled to inherit the ruins of yesterday. They are asked to celebrate crumbs as achievements and to wear hardship as a badge of national identity.

The danger is that memories are powerful. The experiences that shape a young man or woman today become the culture they pass on tomorrow. If the only memories we give our youth are those of poverty, broken promises, insecurity, and rigged elections, then those memories will become the building blocks of their adulthood. A generation that remembers only failure will struggle to imagine success. And a people that normalize hardship will promote it unconsciously, generation after generation.

But it does not have to be this way. Nigeria’s youth are not without power; they are simply without collective will. The same energy that drives young people to flood the streets during protests, to dominate the world in music, arts, and sports, and to create digital innovations in spite of hardship, can be redirected toward building a nation that refuses to promote failure. What is needed is not just anger but a disciplined, organized, and enduring commitment to change.

It is time for young Nigerians to break the cycle of memory. To say no to political jobbers who offer peanuts in exchange for votes. To reject the glorification of corrupt men who return every four years with the same empty slogans. To stop normalizing suffering as if it were destiny. If the leaders have failed us, then we must not fail ourselves by internalizing their failures as our inheritance.

History will not forgive a generation that chose silence over courage, apathy over responsibility, and excuses over action. Nigeria’s youth cannot afford to be remembered as the generation that merely inherited hardship and then promoted it. We must be remembered as the generation that broke the curse, rewrote the memory, and restored dignity to what it means to be Nigerian.

The memory of failure is heavy,  but it does not have to be permanen

t. The choice is ours.