Mfonobong Inyang: Young Nigerians Are The Real Turning Point Generation

I’m proud to be a young Nigerian; particularly to be part of the critical mass that moves the needle – we used to pray for times like these. Long ago I began sensing that the salvation of this country is in the hands her young people and the more I live, the more I have come to believe it so intensely such that nobody can tell me otherwise. I did a video some years ago ever before Gen Z became a thing where I stated categorically that I have not seen or read about any country in modern history that wages a war against its young people and won. They may be outsmarted in the short run but will never be outnumbered and whenever they get in formation – it’s game over. I was furious that year when young Nigerians were described as “lazy” so much that I wrote an entire book about it. Some of us are not emergency lovers of Nigeria, this is why I am committed to publicly documenting some of my thoughts despite my schedule because a time will come when I will just keep quiet and only reference what I have said before.

They Not Like Us!

We criticise public officials because their decisions are more consequential in scale on citizens than private people. This playbook of conflating issues by churning out lame narratives such as disrespect for elders is pure BS. How do you explain to a young person that a whopping N9 Billion was allocated for the 2024 Olympics but her name was not entered for a competition or that she had to borrow a bicycle from another country? We can’t continue perpetuating this incompetence culture by defending the indefensible with truckloads of baloney. If you ask me, the government should be grateful that despite their anger, some young people could articulate their demands very intelligently and in a very civilised manner. If the fundamentals of this agitation are not addressed, there might not be a heads-up next time and unfortunately, this chest-thumping and associated shenanigans won’t be enough.

We go jam for the junction

What political party does hunger belong to? What ethnicity is inflation from? What religious tenets does poverty subscribe to? Fela was in his bag when he recorded Original Sufferhead because the four things he adumbrated, “water, light, food, house” are still choking large swaths of the population today. If you understand the psychology of young people, they typically aren’t interested in politics. However, when your reggae starts to spoil their blues and they draw a straight line from their socio-economic outcomes to these voodoo policies, they will enter the chat. In 2015, Nigeria was the third fastest-growing economy in the world until that projection was interrupted by abominable leadership. You can’t gaslight this supposed phone-pressing generation; they have educated themselves on how those in power really think at inflexion points like the pandemic, October 2020, the 2023 elections and even now with the government’s response to their legitimate agitation. It’s peak fooling to think that this sabre-rattling will make them blink first. No wam, we go jam for the junction.

Sorry For The Laugh

It leaves me in stitches whenever I see some characters try to reprise their old tricks. All these undercover political operatives should know that they are not dealing with our parent’s generation wey dem run street that year. Everybody eyes don neat now, that format don cast – update full ground. God is all about justice, equity and fairness. Tomorrow, they will say young people don’t respect their elders but they will not tell you how some of these elders have ruined their legacy by trying to abuse the reverence that was otherwise statutorily accorded them. Not gonna lie, traditional stools and prominent custodians of culture being reduced to hirelings of politicians is not something I had on my bingo card.

I never thought the best that so-called master strategists could come up with was mobilising people for counter-protests, thuggery, veiled threats from security agencies and other acts of tomfoolery. I have always insisted that half of what we were taught as history is pure lamba because some folks who claimed to fight for democracy that year have been thoroughly exposed as ethnic irredentists and bigots with a sprinkle of dictatorship. Lousy-appointed public officials talking down on those who were validly elected via the ballot box is a travesty of democracy – a badly written joke.

People who are notoriously quiet when young people are going through hell but suddenly start dropping unfortunate quotes when the youths have been pushed to the wall should search their souls. We hear more about the economic impact of protests than the grand theft of 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Some choose to sing about our suffering but ghost on us when they should speak up – afroshege seems to be their favourite genre. Some intellectuals still think this is 2015 when dem dey form chef upandan, they should know that cooking is no longer an exclusive preserve of a few – everybody don get PhD for Culinary Studies. This generation no too get joy like that. If you do anyhow, you go collect woto woto. Coconut head generation na your mate? Dey play my fans. Once again, sorry for the laugh.

What Is It? Haven’t You Done Enough?

If you live in Nigeria, you no better pass your neighbour – being classist in the poverty capital of the world is not the flex we think it is. Individual success will never be enough to compensate for collective failure. As long as your neighbour is hungry, you’re really not balling. Young Nigerians aren’t lazy, they just need the basics and they will sort themselves out. Nigerians shall not live by palliatives alone; sharing of rice is not an economic policy – all these hand-outs are getting out of hand. A lot of young people are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea; they are struggling to live, and neither can they leave the country. Cost of living wan kee the living and it costs an arm and a leg to japa. What belongs to Caesar no sure for am again; the average young person may never be able to travel abroad, build a house or buy a car in their lifetime and it’s not because they aren’t hardworking. They have realised that political leaders have mortgaged their futures to a large extent and if something is not done urgently, neither they nor their children are leaving the trenches anytime soon. Youths have lost valuable years to abominable governance and they are seeing the signs that they may have to sacrifice more of their youth for some more propaganda-driven leadership that cosplays good governance. The fear of their future and the uncertainty is why they are speaking up because the maths is not mathing.

I used to think it was just the nostalgia industrial complex at play but on closer interrogation, I see that there is a huge demand for encore vibes. I recently saw an ad where a brand had to recreate a famous TV commercial that struck a chord with audiences, more musicians are outchea sampling old songs more, people are reminiscing on old times when they perceived things were better, and a popular movie studio had to bring back one of their OGs to revive its franchise, even in certain political quarters there is a strong demand for encore leadership. Simply put, most young people seem to believe that under the current arrangement, their future looks bleak compared to their past.

The economic strength of young people seems to be an existential threat to certain feudalistic leaders and since it’s too late to make some of them illiterate, such leaders try to make them poor. It seems the plan has always been to attack the brain, pocket or both. Economic ventures championed by young people have gotten whacked with taxes, bans or obnoxious regulations. From Bitcoin, ride-hailing services, X, content creators (even though NFVCB classification doesn’t apply to online content), tech businesses and now there is chatter about taxing remote workers. It’s not about performative stipends and selfies, any politician that claims to love young people will show it through policy. No be cho cho cho, show workings. I will leave the small matter of WhatsApp possibly exiting Nigeria owing to excessive fines; apps wey our mama dey use answer tech sis? Na dem go enter streets, we no go even put mouth.

In the end, this Naija wey you see so, it’s our zone. These streets wey you dey see so, it’s our own. All the people wey we see, we love them to our bone. We will take our stand and build our land with faith to defend what is ours.