“I have been hearing we are the future of tomorrow for so long now. When is tomorrow?” narratives on youth and the future in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria has one of the largest youth populations in the world. Across three rounds of a total of 17 focus group discussions in and around Abuja (N = 115), we discussed the sociopolitical situation in Nigeria before and after the national elections in 2023. Participants spoke of the need for change, and in their future-thinking, they positioned youth as key drivers for change. Through a narrative analysis, we explore this positioning, as well as the exclusion of youth from decision-making spaces. Participants–young and older–speak of the exclusion of youth as blocking imagined futures for the nation. We divided the results into two main narratives: narratives of despair and narratives of hope. Agency and power are positioned differently within these–as owned by the elites in the first set of narratives, and by the people (particularly the youth) in the latter. The former is the more prominent and emphasized narrative, speaking to the challenging situation in Nigeria. We make use of concepts of hope, agency, and world-making to discuss the data, keeping in mind the restrictive context and hindrances in place. Combined, this allows for exploring the impact of future stories on the present, and places agency and power (and the lack thereof) front and centre.