By Ugo Inyama

Nigeria’s youth are not just the future — they are the present. With more than 70% of the population under 35, the nation’s destiny depends on them. Yet millions of young Nigerians wake up each day to nothing — no jobs, no opportunities, no clear path to progress. This isn’t by accident. It’s the direct consequence of a broken system that rewards connections over competence and mediocrity over merit.

What we face today is not merely unemployment — it is a national betrayal.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, more than 73% of Nigerians aged 15–34 are unemployed or underemployed. That’s not just a figure; it’s a mirror reflecting the failure of leadership and policy. Behind every statistic lies a wasted dream, a graduate selling phone chargers on the street, a skilled artisan idle because there’s no power, a coder forced into cybercrime for survival.

Every year, Nigerian universities, polytechnics, and vocational schools produce over half a million graduates. Yet, the system absorbs almost none in percentage terms. Government after government makes speeches about “job creation” but builds no industries, reforms no curricula, and enforces no accountability. Education in Nigeria has become a conveyor belt of frustration producing certificates, not skills; graduates, not problem-solvers.

The problem isn’t the youth. It’s the system that has failed them — a system that refuses to grow industries, neglects infrastructure, and suffocates small businesses under the weight of erratic policies, multiple taxation, and corruption.

Insecurity, banditry, and cybercrime are not born in a vacuum. They are the offspring of economic exclusion. When a nation locks its young people out of opportunities, it opens the door to despair. And despair has consequences.

Employment gives purpose, pride, and peace. A working youth is a hopeful youth. A job is more than income -it is identity, dignity, and belonging. Without work, that same youth becomes vulnerable to manipulation, to crime, to hopelessness.

No nation can rise when its most vibrant generation is stuck in survival mode. Countries that made the leap from poverty to prosperity — China, Vietnam, South Korea did so by investing in their youth, building industries, and aligning education with national goals. Nigeria, by contrast, keeps recycling excuses and importing what it should be producing.

It’s time to stop pretending. Job creation must become the heartbeat of governance. It must shape education, infrastructure, and fiscal policy. Instead of endless subsidies that feed corruption, channel those billions into youth enterprise funds, innovation hubs, and industrial clusters that create real jobs.

The private sector too must be unleashed, not strangled. SMEs employ over 80% of Nigeria’s workforce but face crippling taxes, epileptic power, and no access to credit. Government must stop treating businesses as cash cows and start seeing them as engines of growth.

And education must return to purpose. The gap between classroom and career is now a canyon. We need vocational and digital training that matches the demands of the 21st-century economy. A degree without skill is a ticket to frustration.

Above all, there must be political will not slogans. We must measure progress not by committees and conferences, but by one metric: how many jobs were created, sustained, and scaled this year?

Nigeria’s youth have already shown their brilliance in technology, music, film, fashion, and sports—industries thriving not because of government, but in spite of it. Imagine what could happen if that same ingenuity received structured support, investment, and trust.

The real crisis isn’t that young Nigerians are unemployed; it’s that they are losing faith in the system, in the idea of merit, in their country itself. And when a nation’s youth stop believing, the future collapses long before the economy does.

Nigeria must act urgently and honestly. It must dismantle the barriers that keep its youth jobless and rebuild the structures that make work meaningful. Not as a favour, not as charity but as survival.

Because when young people work, the nation grows. But when they are abandoned, no amount of oil wealth or empty rhetoric can save it.

The message is clear and urgent: Employ the youth — or lose the nation.

*Ugo Inyama writes from the African Digital Governance Centre, Manchester, UK.
www.africandgc.org

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