Femi LazarusCEO at Femi Lazarus Consulting

What is the strategy of the youth today? Do our ideas carry the hope for a better nation?

8 Apr 2026 · 2 min

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1:39

In this brief excerpt from The Declassified Podcast, the host asks about the prospects of Nigeria’s youth. The guest (Speaker B) offers a skeptical view, arguing that youth strategy lacks vision and standards of excellence. He recounts a real‑estate forum where young professionals could not articulate concrete ideas for the industry, using this to question their capacity to demand good governance. He then describes the harsh conditions in a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camp—long queues for food, tea with ash—to illustrate how even basic needs are unmet, suggesting that youths are unaware of their rights and therefore cannot effectively push for national improvement. The segment ends with a promotional plug for the podcast’s availability on YouTube and Spotify.

When you look at what's going on in Nigeria, when you look at the strategy of the youths, do you think there's hope?
When I look at the strategy of the youths, to be honest, even if I am hopeful, I know it's going to take a long time. For example, there was a time I was speaking on a real estate platform and I said, all of us are in our 20s and 30s here. I said, let's look at what we are building. What's the future of this industry? So copy and paste that. If in that small ecosystem young people can't say, this is the idea that I'm bringing, How can I trust you when it comes to the general governance of the country? Even the business you are doing, you are not doing it right. The job you are at, you are not excellent. How can we come together to now say we are clamoring for an excellent nation? We don't even know what excellence means. The percentage of people who really understands, who are really the quality of people that can champion the future that we really want, we are very few. One of the saddest reality I've seen was NYSC. I was hosting, holding conversation with my platoon guys just, and I'm like, is this the future of Nigeria? Sir, when it comes to youthful demand for a better country, a revolt or riot should have sprung forth from NYSC camps. That you queue to get food and you collect tea and you are seeing ashes fall inside your tea and you can still take it. And the government knows that you know that you are really not coming from much. You don't even know what you deserve. So that's how you do also at home. So you don't really know much to even demand from. So things that should upset us is a normal reality.
The Declassified Podcast is now streaming on YouTube and Spotify.