There was a time when being young in Nigeria meant believing that anything was possible. You could graduate from university, get a good job, build a career, start a business, buy a house and create a comfortable life. It might not happen immediately, but you believed it would happen eventually.

Today, that belief is becoming harder for many young Nigerians to hold on to.

Not because they have stopped dreaming, but because reality keeps getting in the way.

For many young people, the future now feels like something they have to escape to rather than something they can build at home.

For years, education was presented as the pathway to success. Parents told their children to go to school, get good grades and graduate. Many young Nigerians followed that advice. They spent years in classrooms, completed their degrees and entered the job market with hope.

Then reality arrived.

They discovered that having a degree does not necessarily mean having a job. And even when a job comes, the salary may not be enough to cover basic living expenses.

This creates a painful question for many young people: If I do everything I am told to do and still struggle, what exactly am I supposed to do?

The rising cost of living has also changed what young Nigerians consider possible. For some, owning a home feels like a distant dream. For others, getting married feels financially impossible. Starting a business requires capital that many young people do not have. Even basic things like transportation, food and rent can consume a significant portion of a person's income.

Young people are therefore not only trying to build careers. They are trying to survive.

And it is difficult to think about long-term goals when you are constantly worried about your immediate needs.

Social media has made this even more complicated. Every day, young Nigerians see people travelling, buying cars, launching businesses, getting married and announcing new achievements. It can look like everyone else is moving forward while you are still trying to figure out your life.

The comparison can be exhausting.

What social media rarely shows is the struggle behind the success. It does not show the debt, the failed businesses, the unemployment, the rejection emails or the nights spent wondering if things will ever get better.

Instead, young people are constantly exposed to the highlight reel of other people's lives. And when their own reality does not match what they see online, they may begin to feel like they are failing.

One of the clearest signs of the frustration among Nigerian youth is the desire to leave the country.

For many young Nigerians, "japa" is no longer just a trendy word. It represents hope. It represents the possibility of finding better opportunities elsewhere. It represents the desire to live in a place where hard work feels more likely to produce results.

Of course, life abroad is not always easy. People who relocate face their own challenges, including loneliness, discrimination, expensive living costs and the difficulty of starting again. But when young people are willing to leave behind family, friends and everything familiar, it tells us something important about how they feel about the opportunities available at home.

Unemployment creates another layer of frustration. When a young person cannot find work, the problem goes beyond money. Unemployment can affect confidence, mental health and important life decisions. It can create dependency and, in some cases, make vulnerable young people susceptible to exploitation and criminal activity.

A society with a large population of educated but unemployed young people is facing a serious challenge.

Young people need more than motivational speeches about working hard. They need opportunities. They need functioning systems. They need access to capital. They need affordable education. They need an environment where businesses can survive and create jobs.

Perhaps one of the deepest sources of frustration is the feeling that young people are not being heard.

Many young Nigerians feel disconnected from decision-making processes and want leaders who understand their reality. They want leaders who understand what it means to search for a job for months, pay rent with an unstable income, support parents while trying to build a future, or graduate with a degree and still be told that they need “experience.”

They want to feel that their future matters.

But is all hope lost?

No.

Despite everything, Nigerian youth continue to create. They are building businesses, creating content, learning technology, starting communities, working remotely, building careers, launching startups, making music, telling stories and finding ways to survive in circumstances that would break many people.

The problem is not that Nigerian youth have stopped trying.

The problem is that too many young people are tired of trying without seeing enough results.

That is the difference.

Nigeria's future depends heavily on its young people. A country cannot build a strong future while its youth feel that their only option is to leave.

The answer is not to tell young Nigerians to simply "have faith" or "work harder." Faith and hard work matter, but they must meet opportunity.

Young people need access to quality education. They need jobs that pay living wages. They need security. They need affordable housing. They need reliable infrastructure. They need leaders who are accountable.

Most importantly, they need a reason to believe that their future can be better than their present.

Nigeria's youth are not asking for a perfect country.

They are asking for a fair chance.

A chance to work.

A chance to build.

A chance to dream.

A chance to stay.

And perhaps the most important question Nigeria must answer is not, “Why are our young people leaving?”

It is, “What would we need to change to make them want to stay?”

Because when young people lose hope in the future, it is not only the young people who lose.

The entire country does.