For a little over four days, my compound became a small republic at war.
Two of my dogs fought with a bitterness I had never seen. The older one carried himself as though the title deed to the yard was hidden beneath his paws. He knew every corner and had always enjoyed the younger dog’s deference. Then a female dog entered the equation, and instinct overruled history.
This was no ceremonial barking for the neighbours. Teeth found flesh; dust rose. Each separation merely postponed the next assault. By the fourth day, the older dog was badly injured and close to death. The younger stood over him like a claimant who had discovered that age was not invincibility, then walked away as though succession had been settled.
Then came the detail that changed the story: the younger dog was the older dog’s son. Once, he would not have imagined confronting his father, much less doing so with such confidence.
Nigeria is now standing inside that compound.
The female dog in this metaphor is not womanhood; she is politics and governance; the Nigerian state: desired, possessed, fought over, but rarely nurtured. The older dog represents a political breed that mistakes long residence for permanent ownership. The younger dog is the coming generation: impatient, digitally armed and unconvinced that fatherhood confers an eternal right to the yard. This is a warning, not a prescription; but when an old order refuses an orderly handover, succession often arrives with teeth.
My friend, Professor Chris Kwaja, recently put his finger on this future. Nigeria’s Gen Z—usually defined as those born between 1997 and 2012—is not a demographic footnote but a nation within the nation. Estimates vary by dataset, but we are speaking of tens of millions in a country whose 2025 population the United Nations Population Fund placed at 237.5 million. The arithmetic is patient but merciless.
The minimum constitutional age for the presidency is 35. The cohort’s oldest members are 29 in 2026; by 2035, they will be 38 and eligible. A Gen Z Nigerian may not become President that year, but one will eventually sit in Aso Rock. The question is: what kind of President will Nigeria produce?
This generation carries Nigeria in its pocket. It learns across borders, earns across currencies, compares governments in real time and records brutality before authority can issue a denial. It has far more in its locker than caricature admits—intellect, guts, innovation and creative audacity—and does not wait for the emir, bishop, party chairman or television editor to grant permission to speak.
The 2020 #EndSARS uprising showed the possibilities. Young Nigerians mobilised crowds, raised funds, coordinated welfare and legal aid, and seized narrative power from old gatekeepers. Yet assessments of its successes and limitations suggest that leaderlessness was both armour and ceiling: it resisted co-option but complicated negotiation and continuity. A hashtag can open a gate; it cannot write a budget. Virality is not organisation, followers are not delegates, and power does not resign because a meme embarrassed it.
This is where the current argument about an “Olodo uprising” requires more light than heat. Olodo, in popular Yoruba usage, is the dunce. The phrase captures anxiety that digital Nigeria rewards noise above knowledge, spectacle above substance and confidence above competence. The anxiety is not foolish. When a teacher cannot pay rent while profitable nonsense buys another SUV, society has published a curriculum without calling it one. If ignorance attracts money and fame while learning attracts unemployment, why feign surprise at the lesson being learnt?
But using the most visible absurdities online to define a generation is a false dawn of analysis. A ring light is not a census instrument. The algorithm magnifies whatever arrests attention; it does not mirror a generation’s mind. Five viral jesters can obscure thousands of young Nigerians writing code, building payment systems, creating films, conducting research, farming with data and solving problems the state has abandoned.
The “Olodo uprising” is not an age group; it is an incentive system with grey-haired patrons, corporate sponsors, educated audiences and institutions that have spent decades humiliating learning. Before TikTok, public officers commissioned uncompleted projects with brass bands and long grammar. The young did not invent anti-intellectualism; they merely gave some of it better lighting and faster internet.
The Yoruba say, Àgbà kì í wà lọ́jà, kí orí ọmọ tuntun wọ́—an elder cannot be in the marketplace while a newborn’s head remains crooked. If society’s head is bent, elders cannot shout “Olodo!” like innocent passers-by. Another warning says, Ọmọ tí a kò kọ́ ni yóò gbé ilé tí a kọ́ tà—the child we fail to build will sell the house we built. Nigeria erected monuments while neglecting schools, values, civic capacity and hope. Now it fears the auctioneer it raised.
Still, Gen Z must not mistake demographic power for moral superiority. Youth is not an ideology. A young thief remains a thief, even in livestreamed 4K. Nigeria can replace grey hair without replacing grey habits. Ethnic merchants will open TikTok shops; godfathers will recruit digital godsons. A Gen Z President could be innovative and accountable—or an old politician in sneakers, fluent in emojis and authoritarianism.
To reset Nigeria, this generation must convert attention into organisation, outrage into policy, and population into electoral power. It must enter wards, parties, councils, unions and communities; it must learn budgets, federalism, security, history and compromise. The Igbo say, Nwata kwọcha aka, ọ soro ndị okenye rie nri—when a child washes his hands, he may eat with the elders. Yet the elders must stop moving the table behind nomination fees, rigged primaries and patronage.
Nor are young Nigerians as post-ethnic or post-religious as romantic commentary suggests. They are less deferential, but algorithms manufacture digital tribes efficiently. The phone that exposes corruption can distribute a lie; the platform that mobilises justice can organise a mob. Digital nativity is power, not wisdom. Innovation without ethics can merely optimise corruption.
The Hausa offer an audacious proverb, Kowa ya raina tsayuwar wata, ya hau ya gyara—whoever dislikes the moon’s position should climb and straighten it. Gen Z has long mocked Nigeria’s crooked moon. Soon, it must climb. Then it will discover that the presidency is not a content house, the budget is not a caption and insecurity cannot be defeated with a clapback. Its President must govern X Spaces and village squares, data dashboards and dusty farm paths, including millions the algorithm never sees.
Meanwhile, the remaining Mohicans of the old political order are transitioning, one after another, from centre stage into memoir, memory and history. Their wisest choice is to build bridges, not barricades; to mentor without annexing; to surrender space without demanding that the future first kneel. As the Igbo say, Egbe bere, ugo bere—let the kite perch and let the eagle perch. Generational renewal need not be warfare, but coexistence becomes impossible when one bird claims the whole tree.
The older dog in my compound survived, but survival humbled him. The younger dog also learnt that victory can leave blood on everybody. The object of their contest simply moved on, indifferent to their wounds. Nigeria must not become that bleeding compound.
A Gen Z will soon be President of Nigeria. That is not prophecy; it is arithmetic. Whether that presidency becomes renewal or merely youthful packaging for an ancient failure depends on what we teach, reward and build now. The younger Turks are already inside the compound. The old breed should hear their footsteps—not with panic, but with the wisdom to prepare a handover before succession again arrives with teeth.
May Nigeria win.
