The Special Assistant to the Ondo State Governor on Digital Media, Rahman Adekunle Yusuf, has urged Nigerian youths to stop waiting for the government and others to create opportunities for them, saying they must take deliberate steps towards building their future.
Yusuf, who made the call while reviewing Christopher Olusa’s book, No More Future: Why Waiting Is Over—and What to Build Instead, said the culture of waiting had become a major challenge among young Nigerians.
He said many youths had continued to postpone action while waiting for better economic conditions, employment, government interventions, or financial opportunities.
According to him, the book challenges young people to see the future not as something they should wait for, but as something they must consciously build through skills, discipline, relationships, credibility, and purposeful action.
“The future is not a destination we eventually arrive at. It is something we construct deliberately, often imperfectly, with whatever resources, skills, and opportunities are available to us now,” Yusuf said.
He said No More Future went beyond conventional motivational literature by encouraging young people to take responsibility for the aspects of their lives within their control.
Yusuf acknowledged the challenges confronting young Nigerians, including unemployment, economic hardship, educational disruptions, weak institutions, technological changes, and the increasing attraction of migration, popularly known as “japa.”
He, however, warned threcognizinging those challenges should not become an excuse for inaction.
“We cannot control everything the government or society does, but we retain responsibility for our own actions. The book asks a very important question: what are you doing with what you have?” he said.
Yusuf said one of the major arguments in the book was the need for individuals to build systems around themselves rather than depend entirely on other people’s permission or support.
“It is about building something that does not depend entirely on someone else’s permission. The emphasis is on skills, discipline, relationships, credibility, and influence,” he said.
He said Olusa drew from his experiences as a student, entrepreneur, and leader to demonstrate the importance of preparation, consistency, and resilience in achieving success.
Yusuf particularly highlighted the author’s treatment of leadership, describing it as one of the important aspects of the book.
“Leadership begins long before anyone is watching. It is revealed when disappearing would be easier,” he said.
According to him, the author’s experiences showed that genuine leadership was not necessarily about titles, offices, or visibility, but about accepting responsibility for problems and working towards solutions.
“Leadership begins with taking responsibility for problems before anyone formally authorizes us to solve them,” Yusuf added.
On influence, he said the book provided useful lessons through the author’s account of a youth voter-registration initiative that was mobilised without funding, official government backing, or a political godfather.
Yusuf said the experience demonstrated that people could mobilise resources around a credible idea if they could communicate and persuade others effectively.
“Influence is the new currency. In today’s world, formal authority is increasingly accompanied by networks, credibility, communication, and mobilisation,” he said.
He also commended the author’s discussion of social media, saying it was particularly relevant to young Nigerians.
“Visibility is not necessarily value, and appearing successful online is not the same thing as becoming successful offline,” Yusuf said.
He warned youths against falling victim to the culture of performative success created by social media, noting that many lifestyles displayed online were carefully curated and did not necessarily reflect reality.
On migration, Yusuf said the book offered a balanced perspective on the “japa” phenomenon.
“Olusa does not present japa as either automatic success or betrayal. Rather, he asks young Nigerians to consider what they are running towards, rather than merely what they are running from,” he said.
Yusuf, however, cautioned that the emphasis on personal responsibility should not lead to ignoring the structural inequalities confronting young Nigerians.
“We should encourage young Nigerians to take responsibility for their lives without making them responsible for every condition that constrains those lives,” he said.
He noted that access to electricity, quality education, digital devices, capital, information, professional networks, and safe environments remained unequal.
Yusuf said the central message of No More Future was that hope must eventually translate into action.
“There will always be another election to wait for, another administration to blame, another degree to obtain, another economic recovery to anticipate, and another opportunity to hope somebody will create,” he said.
“Olusa’s challenge is for us to recognize that, at some point, waiting becomes a decision.”
He said the book was not suggesting that Nigeria had no future but challenging Nigerians to stop treating the future as something that would automatically arrive without deliberate effort.
“The future we keep waiting for is not waiting for us at alPerhaps it it is waiting for us to start building it,” Yusuf said.