By Saifullahi Attahir
Fifty years ago, a group of young black students posed for an evening photoshoot near the London Bridge. They had amiable Afro cuts, sharp suits, and confident smiles. Most of them were there on a Northern Nigeria Government Scholarship.
It was more than a photograph. It was a statement of national pride. A young, ambitious nation investing in its future — sending its best and brightest to the world so they could return and build the country.
Today, their grandchildren are posting a similar photoshoot in a London restaurant. Same city, similar pose, but a completely different story.
There is no government scholarship this time.
They are there after paying close to ten million Naira in visa fees, agent fees, and survival costs — just to search for a menial job. Care shifts, warehouse jobs, security jobs. Jobs that barely pay the bills, but are still more dignified than what awaits them at home.
And they see it as a personal triumph. And honestly, who can blame them? Their friends and family flood the comment sections, congratulating them for escaping and for building a new life where they can at least fulfill their potential.
We now celebrate escaping the very country their grandparents were sponsored to build.
The deepest irony? The beneficiaries of that former scholarship — the classmates of those young men in London — are the very ones occupying the seats of power today. The generation that was given everything to build the nation is now presiding over a nation everyone wants to leave.
So, does our generation have a legitimate right to be frustrated?
Are Millennials and Gen Z really lazy?
We are not lazy. We are tired.
Tired of paying heavily to leave a country that once paid people to leave and return. Tired of being told to be patient by people who have never had to struggle. Tired of being called entitled for demanding the basic opportunities our grandparents were handed on a platter.
The two photos tell the whole story of Nigeria in fifty years — from a nation that exported scholars to a nation that exports survivors.
Saifullahi Attahir is the President, National Association of Jigawa State Medical Students (NAJIMS), Federal University Dutse
saifullahiattahir93@gmail.com
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