A few weeks ago, I read on social media how some young Nigerian graduates described their situation in life. They believed that they were simply not lucky or that destiny had not favored them. They thought that the same destiny had smiled on others by giving them jobs while denying them similar opportunities. To them, getting a job and doing well in life is purely a matter of fate, and there is nothing a person can do if destiny has chosen otherwise. Those who preach and believe in this idea are mostly young people who are fast running out of their youthful years. Their only achievement appears to be the standard Nigerian pathway; basic primary and secondary education, followed by university, then the mandatory one-year national service. Afterward, they wait for a miracle, believing that a job will automatically come because they followed the logical path. When the job never comes, they assume the next step is to obtain another degree, perhaps a master’s, thinking that their problem is a lack of credentials rather than a lack of useful skills. They then return to the same university system that failed to equip them for real life, repeating the same routine, and when disappointment comes again, they begin to speak of destiny and luck as if those words can erase the choices they made.
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I see things differently, and perhaps my explanation may unsettle some people. But the truth, though uncomfortable, needs to be said. Young people must be advised to study something that matters, something that builds their capacity to think, to analyze, to create, and to solve problems. They should pursue disciplines that connect to the future of work, not the past. The world has changed, but too many Nigerian youths still study for a world that no longer exists. There is nothing wrong with learning for learning’s sake, but if you expect to earn a living from your education, then you must be strategic about what you study. There are fields that add value, and there are those that only make you sound educated. Many students still spend years memorizing theories that have no connection to reality, graduating without a single skill that employers consider useful. When job offers do not come, they believe the problem lies in the number of degrees they have, rather than the absence of value in what they learned.
And instead of confronting the truth, they return to the same universities that failed them and register for the same kind of programs that failed them before. They imagine that another certificate will solve the problem, but it never does. The system rewards repetition and not reinvention. And so the cycle continues, which is: graduate, struggle, return, repeat! After several rounds of frustration, many begin to take refuge in superstition. They convince themselves that success is about luck or divine favor. They say life is not by effort but by some form of grace. They stop asking what they could do differently and instead start asking God to do for them what they can do for themselves. But nobody made those choices for them. Nobody forced them to study what they studied, and nobody stopped them from learning something useful on their own. The truth is that they are where they are because of the decisions they made, and their problem is not destiny but a refusal to take responsibility.
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It is painful to admit, but many young Nigerians have been trained to see education as a ritual rather than a tool. You go to school, take notes, pass exams, and collect a certificate. Nobody asks whether you can apply what you learned, and nobody asks whether your education has any use in the real world. The university system has become detached from the industries it is supposed to serve. Meanwhile, the world has moved far ahead. Artificial Intelligence is reshaping how businesses operate and the energy transition is transforming industries. Today, the value of education lies in its relevance to innovation and its power to produce thinkers and problem solvers. But many of our institutions still treat students as empty containers to be filled with outdated information, where there is little curiosity, no creativity, and almost no critical thinking. The students are trained to obey, and not to question. Those who ask difficult questions are called rude, and those who challenge poor teaching are labeled arrogant. Thus, by the time they graduate, they have learned not to think.
The result is a generation of graduates skilled only in memorizing and reproducing what others have said; making them able to quote books but unable to write new ones. They can repeat formulas but cannot apply them to real problems. And because they have been conditioned to fear failure, they cling to their comfort zones and avoid the hard work of reinvention. This is where Yuval Harari’s warning about the rise of the “useless class” becomes strikingly relevant. Harari describes a growing group of people who are not poor because they are lazy, but because their skills have lost value. Algorithms and better-trained humans have replaced them. They are not useless because they lack morality or effort, but because they cannot do what the modern world demands. If your skills no longer matter, you will find yourself part of that class (living below the working class, the middle class, and the upper class) existing on the margins of relevance and depending on others who made better choices.
But this does not have to be your story as you can change your life if you are willing to learn what matters. You can learn to code, analyze data, design systems, repair machines, or build solutions. The world no longer rewards certificates but competence. You do not need to wait for someone to teach you as you can teach yourself given that the internet has democratized learning. You can sit in your room in Kano or Port Harcourt and take free courses from the best universities in the world. You can watch lectures and master skills that are in global demand. Therefore, what you need is not another certificate but curiosity and discipline. Nigeria’s youth population should be our greatest advantage, but an unskilled young population is a burden, not a blessing. A nation cannot develop when its young people pursue paper qualifications rather than practical knowledge as true development begins in the mind, not the classroom. The mindset that values theory over application is why we remain behind. We often speak about unemployment, but what we truly suffer from is unemployability. Employers do not reject young people out of hatred; they simply cannot find people who can deliver results. Every serious employer values competence over credentials, and you cannot blame them for choosing value over vanity. And as a society, we must stop glorifying mediocrity. In many offices, people are rewarded for titles and not performance. This culture trickles down to the younger generation, who start believing that success comes from connections and not competence.
The young people in Nigeria must wake up from the illusion that makes them believe that success is about luck instead of usefulness. They should know that grace does not replace effort, and they cannot pray their way into competence, nor can they shout their way into skill. The world of work respects only those who can do what others cannot, and if you want to be relevant, you must learn something that matters. Nigeria needs problem solvers, not paper holders. We need engineers who can fix the national grid and scientists who can build clean energy systems. We need thinkers who can design sound policies. We also need teachers who can inspire creativity and students who can turn ideas into reality. Every nation that advanced did so by teaching its youth to be useful, not merely to sound educated without being useful. Therefore, if you are a young person, the next time you consider going back to school, ask yourself what you are going there to learn. Ask yourself whether you are going to repeat a mistake or to gain a skill that can transform your life. Also know that the difference between stagnation and progress lies in the willingness to learn what matters, and that the world will not wait for you to catch up. You must catch up with it at the pace it is moving. Technology is certainly advancing at an extraordinary speed, and the opportunities that come with it shift every day. This means you must evolve, and if you do not evolve, you will certainly be left behind. That is how you remain relevant in a world that rewards value rather than excuses for failure.
Mohammed Dahiru Aminu ([email protected]) writes from Abuja, Nigeria.
