The generation that must not fail Nigeria: A plea to our youth

And yet, even as we mourn, we must pause and celebrate the Nigerians who remind us of what is possible. Think of many our youths who sit atop the World and carry our flag with unimpeachable dignity. Think of those under 50 whose contributions, whether it is in the arts, social sciences and humanities, rewrote and are still rewriting what the world thought Africans could not achieve. Think of the wave of young Nigerians reshaping technology  from Flutterwave's Olugbenga Agboola to the brilliant minds behind Paystack, which Stripe acquired for over $200 million. Then there is Temie Giwa-Tubosun,  founder of LifeBank, Gossy Ukanwoke, founder of Beni American University, a prominent digital university and Chinedu Azodoh, Co-founder of MAX, building last-mile mobility infrastructure, I will not forget to mention Mark Okoye the present head of SEDC, I have been critical of him but then I must also give him his due here.

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 Think of Burna Boy, Phyno, Rema,  Davido and Wizkid, who did not just win Grammys but carried an entire continent's culture to global stages. Think of writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who has used words not to divide but to illuminate the shared complexity of our humanity. These are Nigerian youths or those who were young when they began. They built. They created. They unified. They gave our generation its place of prestige in the world's imagination.

It is against this backdrop of genuine achievement that one must express profound sadness,  indeed, something close to shame at the ethnic madness we are witnessing. For every Flutterwave, there is a Twitter thread filled with anti-Igbo , anti Yoruba and anti Hausa Fulani slurs slurs. For every Grammy, there is a Facebook post mocking Yoruba people as treacherous or Hausa people as backwards. The contrast is not merely ironic. It is catastrophic.

Notable scholars and peace researchers like Allan Ngari and Denys Reva have written compellingly on the pathway to violent extremism, and their framework is chillingly applicable to what we are observing in our digital spaces. Ngari and Reva describe how the gradual normalisation of dehumanising language against ethnic or social groups creates a psychological and social architecture that makes violence not only possible but, eventually, logical to those who inhabit it. The dangerous truth is that violent extremism does not emerge fully formed. It is seeded in exactly the kind of ethnic slurring we see cascading across our feeds daily. And when it erupts, it does not only consume those against whom it was directed — it engulfs those who stoked it, those who laughed at it, those who shared it, and entire communities who never participated in it at all. There are no winners in that fire.

What makes the present situation particularly worrying is this: the level of ethnic hostility we are witnessing today, with all our education, all our exposure, all our access to history and global thought, exceeds what Nigerians experienced during the First Republic. Let that sink in. During the First Republic, Nigerians were largely rural, literacy rates were low, and access to broader perspectives was limited. And yet, even then, the ethnic antagonisms of that era were sufficient to produce the pogroms of 1966,  the mass killings of Igbo people in the North and ultimately the devastating Nigerian Civil War that consumed between one and three million lives between 1967 and 1970. If that level of ethnic hostility, with far less reach and amplification, could produce such catastrophe, what in heaven's name do we imagine will become of us if we do not urgently arrest what is happening today? The mathematics of hatred are not complicated. More poison, widely distributed, produces more death.

So what must be done? First, Nigerian youths must consciously choose national identity as a value worth defending. This is not about suppressing ethnicity  our diversity is genuinely beautiful and must be preserved. It is about refusing to weaponise it. Every time you encounter ethnic slurring online, do not scroll past. Challenge it. Name it. Refuse to share it.

Second, our educational institutions must integrate robust civic and peace education into curricula at every level. Students must not only learn what happened during the Civil War  and what led to it, they must feel it, understand it, and be equipped to recognise its early warning signs.

Third, social media platforms operating in Nigeria must be held to account. The National Information Technology Development Agency and other regulatory bodies must work seriously with platforms to develop community standards that reflect Nigerian realities and to enforce them without compromise.

Fourth, religious and traditional leaders who still command enormous influence must consistently and publicly denounce ethnic hatred, not only when it serves their political interests but as a matter of standing moral principle.

Finally, and perhaps most urgently, Nigerian youths must create counter-narratives. Build the content. Tell the stories of collaboration, of friendship across ethnic lines, of the Yoruba man who sheltered Igbo neighbours during the pogroms and returned our properties when we came back, of the Hausa community that protected Christian families during riots. These stories exist. They are true. They are Nigeria too.

Nigeria is not a mistake. It is an unfinished project. And the generation that will either complete it gloriously or shatter it beyond repair is the one currently typing ethnic slurs into comment boxes at two in the morning. We have no time left for this. The nation is calling not for its children to hate one another, but to build something worthy of the sacrifices already made. The choice, as it has always been, belongs to us.