A generation on the edge: how Nigeria’s hardship is failing its young people

Walk through any Nigerian city at dawn and you see them: young people pushing carts, hawking in traffic and chasing small jobs that rarely pay enough. They are the face of a generation doing everything right and still struggling to get by.

The numbers are stark. Around 10 million young Nigerians enter the labour market each year, but the economy creates only a fraction of the formal jobs needed, and the vast majority of those working end up in the informal sector with no contract, no benefits and no safety net.

The cost-of-living crisis has made it worse. With poverty estimates climbing past 60% of the population and food prices stretching household budgets to breaking point, a minimum wage that looked like relief on paper buys far less at the market.

Many young people say the deeper problem is governance: budgets that set aside little for those most in need, promised support schemes that never reach them, and a sense that those in power are insulated from the hardship ordinary families face every day.

That frustration has spilled into the streets more than once, met at times with a heavy hand. Others channel it into the 'Japa' wave, leaving the country altogether.

But this is not only a story of despair. Nigeria's youth are also its loudest voices for change - building businesses, organising, creating and demanding accountability. DCTV will keep listening to them, and holding leaders to the promises made in their name.