By Bestman Osemudiamen

The current reality of an average Nigerian youth from a working-class home is bleak. With 60% of the Nigerian population under 30, it is unfortunate that not many get to actualise their dreams. To put this in perspective, it means a whopping 53% of the youth population (that is, 80 million youths or more) remain unemployed. Finding a decent job is extremely difficult for the 1.7 million young people who graduate from tertiary institutions yearly. This scenario makes the economic impact of a capitalist-led government like Tinubu’s and the ones before him much more brutal. By turning a country rich in mineral resources into a catacomb, many youths have become both victims and active participants of a brewing atomic bomb of barbarism that explodes at any slight touch. 

The right to life has become increasingly tenuous. In a report by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, more than 600,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million kidnapped in the last few years. While the insecurity crisis surges as the general election draws closer, the recent Plateau killings, like the Owo massacre and other cases of farmer-herder clashes and banditry, further show that no one is safe, even though the defence and security sectors have continued to enjoy the highest budgetary allocations in years. However, the barbarism and horrors continue to spread rapidly, leaving generational scars and cycles of trauma for the working class.

The education sector is in complete collapse. While the budgetary allocation to the sector has stagnated and below the recommended benchmarks, reports indicate that a total of 1500 schools have shut down, with more than a million young people out of school due to insecurity. Armed groups committed 2,519 gross violations against 1,250 children between January 2022 and December 2023, according to these reports. The Action Aid 2025 Report articulates these findings clearly: 77,000 people lost their lives to tribal conflict, and 2.6 million were displaced from farming areas. When translated, not only will the food crises worsen, but also it shows that a whopping sum of the Nigerian youth population will be drawn into this social violence one way or the other, further escalating the barbarism as the right to free & quality education, employment, food, and safety becomes inaccessible. UNICEF simplifies the issue when it publishes that 25 million Nigerians will be at risk of falling into hunger. And you cannot but wonder how the minimum basic essentials, which the government ordinarily should take responsibility for and make available, continue to erode the average Nigerian working class youth.

Since the Tinubu regime came to power in 2023, the Nigerian masses have suffered several economic crises as a result of the pro-liberal, anti-people policies adopted. The removal of the fuel subsidy has caused fuel pump prices to jump to approximately ₦1,533, or higher. The removal has resulted in a higher cost of living, a hike in prices of commodities, and excruciating inflation despite a stagnant minimum wage pegged at ₦70,000. Comparatively on a global scale, the situation is gross.

In oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, and Kuwait, which are again part of the top 10 countries producing roughly between 3 and 11 million oil barrels per day, the minimum wage (even in a place like Iran) is more than double the amount an average Nigerian receives per month. In Kuwait, for instance, where the price of fuel is conversely ₦609 per litre, the minimum wage sits at ₦334,129. Even with Saudi Arabia producing 10-11 million barrels per day, the price of fuel is ₦970 naira, while the minimum wage for low earners is over ₦1.4 million naira per month.

The intentions of the Tinubu regime become only too clear: make the working people poorer than ever. Suffice to say, the tax reforms, the hike in electricity tariffs, the student loan scheme, and other brutal policies are nothing but a scam designed to milk the masses, who, again, have barely any access to the fundamental necessities of life. And the cycle continues year in, year out: Tinubu for 2027; the APC now controls 31 out of 36 states; and mass anger is brewing. The youths are frustrated, and everyone believes in their Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) again: “Vote these corrupt leaders out of power,” they say.

Following the EndSars protest in 2020, a large portion of the youth population became politically active, determined not only to use their digital voices but also to take to the streets in August 2024 against economic hardship and to challenge the Tinubu-led government just a year after it elected the president. Yet, we witness gruesome attacks on fundamental human rights, with Daniel Akande, Michael Lenin and others being charged with treason because they demanded a better society. As the election nears, more attacks will be meted out to any form of protest, and any rising opposition will be quashed as the INEC saga unfolds.

All these, once again, confirm Vladimir Lenin’s statement that bourgeois democracy has a class character, and in a capitalist state, it is only rather instrumental in keeping the dominant economic class in power. Regardless of which party is in power, a profit-making and big-business-orientated philosophy, influenced by the World Bank and IMF, will continue to subject the lives of average Nigerian youths and the working class to severe crises: once again, to another statistical comparison of unemployment rates, insecurity, and so on.

Despite the interconnectedness of the crises affecting Nigerian youth, the reality is that global capitalism/imperialism has failed. Even when bourgeois apologists make excuses, the contradictions of the growing systemic failures are more glaring than ever. Globally, the working class has nothing to lose but its chains. The Nigerian youth, while connecting themselves with the working-class struggle, must realise that there is an alternative. And the only way to fight systemic failure is through a systemic change, which socialism offers. The Nigerian youth must draw from its historical gains, draw sharper lessons, and advance the struggle for a better society. Such a transformation is impossible by just mere electoral reforms, which INEC has demonstrated are nothing but one of the state apparatuses used by the ruling class to defend itself. Enough is enough.

While the call for the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy under democratic workers’ control is optimal, the need to revive revolutionary education is key in this material age, as young people question and seek answers. They must know that the crises of this world are not spiritual, nor are they about tribe or ethnicity. Poverty doesn’t understand any of these things, nor does oppression segregate. The working people must unite against their common enemy and overthrow the system of capitalism. Until then, the crises are only bound to become worse year in and year out.

Aluta Continua. Victoria Ascerta. Viva Socialism.