By Alao Adamadamosi Sunday
Nigeria is sitting on a demographic time bomb—or a demographic dividend, depending on which side of the coin you look at. With over 60% of its population under the age of 25, and an estimated 70% under 35, the average age of the Nigerian voter is rapidly dropping. Yet, in the corridors of power, the average age of decision-makers remains stubbornly fixed in the senior citizen bracket.
This generational chasm was the stark focal point of a powerful recent discourse delivered by Hon. Mrs. Petra Akinti Onyegbule. The occasion was particularly fitting: a gathering to celebrate the birthday of Comrade Oladele John Nihi, a renowned youth advocate and grassroots mobilizer. In her incisive. presentation titled “Youth as Stakeholders in Governance and Democratic Development: From Inheriting Nigeria to Building Nigeria,” Hon. Onyegbule eloquently captured the defining existential crisis of our time. Are we, the Nigerian youth, destined merely to inherit a nation shaped by the failures and frailties of the past? Or do we possess the audacity, intelligence, and moral urgency to pick up the trowel and build the nation we actually want? Hon. Onyegbule’s resounding answer was the latter, and her call to action, delivered in honour of Comrade Nihi’s lifelong commitment to youth activism, demands our urgent attention.
For too long, Nigerian youths have been treated as the future leaders—a title often used as a pacifier to keep them waiting patiently at the back of the bus while the older generation drives it off a cliff. The phrase “leaders of tomorrow” has become a toxic cliché, a euphemism for political disenfranchisement. As Hon. Onyegbule rightly highlighted in her address, we are not waiting for tomorrow; we are living in the Nigeria of today, bearing the brunt of its economic hardship, its climate of insecurity, and its crumbling infrastructure.
When we talk about inheriting Nigeria, we must be brutally honest about what that inheritance looks like. It is a legacy of entrenched corruption, a public service system weakened by nepotism, a judiciary often perceived as politically compromised, and a national debt burden that crushes the possibility of robust social investment. We are inheriting a political culture where elections are frequently transactional exercises, dominated by godfathers and moneybags rather than ideological conviction or service to the people.
To simply “inherit” this Nigeria is to accept a stifling status quo. It is to accept that the youth are merely spectators in a theatre of democracy where the actors are chosen by elites behind closed doors. Hon. Onyegbule’s presentation challenged this passive acceptance, urging young Nigerians to reject their relegation to the political sidelines.
The critical pivot of Hon. Mrs. Petra Akinti Onyegbule’s message was the transition from passive inheritance to active stakeholding. A stakeholder does not just benefit from the system; they have a vested interest in its integrity and a responsibility for its performance. For the Nigerian youth, this is not a moral suggestion—it is an economic and existential imperative.
The #EndSARS protests proved, perhaps more than any other event in the last decade, that the Nigerian youth are not apathetic. They are informed, digitally connected, and deeply concerned about governance. However, the moment the cameras turned away, the energy dissipated. To be a true stakeholder, as she articulated, means sustaining that energy beyond the hashtags. It means moving from street activism to institutional participation.
Building Nigeria requires the youth to fundamentally disrupt the political equation. It means registering in droves ahead of the 2027 electoral cycle, not just to vote, but to serve as polling unit agents, thump-printers, and election observers. It means mobilizing to run for local councils, state assemblies, and the National Assembly—not as tokenistic “youth candidates” planted by political machines, but as independent minds with manifestos rooted in data, technology, and good governance.
Hon. Onyegbule laid out a clear blueprint for this generational shift. Firstly, we must reclaim the political space. The prohibitive cost of running for office in Nigeria is a deliberate barrier. Youths must organize into cooperatives, crowdfunding campaigns, and civic societies to democratize campaign financing. We must demand constitutional reform that lowers the age of eligibility and makes independent candidates a viable option, breaking the chokehold of the two-party duopoly.
Secondly, we must leverage our demographic advantage. The youth are the drivers of Nigeria’s digital economy. Why should we not have a Minister of Digital Economy and Innovation who is a millennial? Why are the ministries dealing with our future (Education, Works, ICT) largely led by individuals who grew up before the internet era? Building Nigeria means applying 21st-century solutions to 21st-century problems—using data analytics to track budget performance, deploying technology to secure our borders, and harnessing renewable energy to power our rural communities.
Thirdly, and perhaps most crucially, building Nigeria demands a shift in values. We must dismantle the ethnicity-and-religion-based electoral calculus that has fractured us. Nigerian youth are the most cosmopolitan generation in our history; we speak a lingua franca of pop culture, sports, and economic aspiration. We must vote for competence and character, not for the candidate who shares our local government area.
Hon. Mrs. Petra Akinti Onyegbule’s presentation at the PeoplesDefenderNG platform—delivered in the celebratory yet sobering atmosphere of Comrade Oladele John Nihi’s birthday—serves as a crucial wake-up call. It reminds us that birthdays are not just for counting years, but for reflecting on legacy and the work yet to be done. The Nigerian youth cannot afford the luxury of cynicism. We cannot sit on the sidelines and wait for the “old guard” to self-correct. The economy will not fix itself; the security crises will not resolve themselves; the educational decay will not be reversed unless we stop inheriting and start building.
We must storm the ballot boxes, attend town hall meetings, and hold our elected officials accountable from day one. We must publish performance scorecards, use our social media platforms to amplify policy debates, and turn the upcoming elections into a referendum on generational change.
Nigeria will not be saved by the masters of yesterday. It will be built by the builders of today. As Hon. Onyegbule so powerfully reminded us, and as Comrade Nihi’s lifelong dedication exemplifies, the torch has already been passed; we just have to stop dropping it, pick it up, and build. The era of inheriting Nigeria is over. The era of building it is now. Let us rise to the occasion.
– Alao Adamadamosi Sunday, arpa, writes from Lokoja.
