By CYNTHIA UMEZULIKE
I rarely write about Nigeria anymore. Not because I have stopped caring—far from it but because it has become emotionally exhausting to grieve the same loss over and over again. Nigeria is a country that routinely betrays those who dare to believe in its promise. And yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, some of us still do.
But every now and again, something triggers the ache anew. This week, it was the celebration—yes, celebration—of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, a party now functioning more as a retirement home for Nigeria’s politically fatigued than a vehicle for real national transformation. I saw the fanfare, the speeches, the familiar faces, the calculated handshakes—and I felt that same old nausea return. I asked myself, not for the first time: How long will this charade continue? We see the dance. We’ve seen it for decades. The names change; the rot remains.
How do non-senile Nigerians still stomach this?
We must speak plainly. The ADC, like so many other parties before it, is little more than a conglomerate of power-hungry, relevance-chasing old men. Men who should be in elder forums offering moral guidance, not masquerading as saviours of a nation they helped bring to its knees. These are not leaders with a vision for the 21st century—they are relics of a bygone era, desperately clinging to influence in a world that has already moved on.
This is not ageism. It is realism.
No progressive nation is led indefinitely by a class of leaders who have outlived their political creativity, moral courage, and intellectual relevance. At some point, generational transition becomes not just desirable, but inevitable. Nigeria, however, seems determined to defy even this most basic truth of democratic evolution. Instead, we recycle the same tired political figures under different party names and with slightly altered talking points, pretending it amounts to change.
But we see through it.
These men—many of whom have shuffled from one party to the next like players in a never-ending game of political musical chairs—are not concerned with governance. They are concerned with access: to contracts, to titles, to security votes, to power. That is the only continuity they understand. Nation-building? That’s for the campaign slogans.
And still, they gather. In hotels, in halls, in front of microphones, issuing grand pronouncements about saving Nigeria—as though we’ve forgotten the decades they spent mismanaging it. It’s not just insulting; it’s tragic. Because for every recycled statesman elevated by the media and welcomed back into party machinery, there are hundreds of brilliant, competent young Nigerians locked out of the political process.
This is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all.
Nigeria is brimming with talent. From tech innovators and climate activists to policy analysts and social entrepreneurs—our youth are among the most dynamic in the world. They are building billion-naira companies in Lagos, pioneering surgical innovations in Enugu, reshaping fintech in Abuja, and winning scholarships at Oxford and MIT. But when it comes to political power, they are systematically excluded—treated as errand boys and protocol girls in a system that doesn’t take them seriously.
Why?
Because youth threatens the monopoly. A young Ibrahim Touré (symbolic or real) would never survive a day in the ADC, or any of the older parties for that matter. He would ask too many questions. He would challenge the status quo. He would demand real change. And that makes him dangerous.
And so, the system pushes him out—or never lets him in.
Let me be clear: the problem is not just the ADC. It’s the entire culture of gatekeeping, of feudal politics disguised as democracy. It’s the willful exclusion of the competent in favour of the compliant. Every time these political dinosaurs mount a podium, a thousand brilliant young Nigerians lose faith in the system. They pack their bags, take their minds elsewhere, and feed other nations with the genius we refused to water.
Nigeria is, at this moment, at a crossroads. The challenges we face are existential: climate change, mass unemployment, debt distress, food insecurity, systemic corruption, and a complete breakdown of trust between citizens and institutions. These are not problems that can be solved with nostalgia. They require vision, courage, and—most importantly—fresh thinking.
But instead, we are served the same cold leftovers. The same alliances of godfathers and political jobbers, reuniting not to save Nigeria, but to save their own fading relevance.
It is not enough to simply register new political parties or change slogans. What we need is a total reimagining of what leadership looks like in this country. And that starts with political will—not to cling to power, but to hand it over. Not to anointed sons and cronies, but to a new generation of Nigerians with ideas, integrity, and imagination.
This is not wishful thinking. It is the logic of democratic survival.
We often say: “The youth are the leaders of tomorrow.” But that tomorrow will never come unless we fight for it. The current gatekeepers will not open the door voluntarily—they must be pushed aside by a citizenry that is no longer content to clap for speeches and queue for rice at rallies. Civil society, the media, the diaspora, the private sector—we must all demand better. We must insist that merit replaces mediocrity, that youth is not equated with inexperience, and that public office is not treated as personal inheritance.
Achebe was right. “There was once a country.” What he didn’t say—perhaps because it was too painful—is that the country he mourned is fast becoming unrecoverable. But maybe, just maybe, a new one can still be born. A country led not by those who destroyed the old, but by those with the courage to imagine something entirely different.
Nigeria must retire its political gerontocracy. Not to disgrace them, but to free them—and us—from the prison of nostalgia. The time for mentorship is now. The time for succession is overdue. Because if we continue down this path, clapping for men who should be writing memoirs instead of manifestos, then we are not just betraying our youth—we are condemning them to a future even bleaker than our past. And we will have no one left to blame but ourselves.
There was a country. But today, there is only the illusion of one—maintained by a fragile alliance of men too proud to admit their time is over.
*Dr Umezulike is an International Human Rights Lawyer, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Development, Energy Transitions and Climate Change at the University of Bedfordshire United Kingdom
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