The energy of a 25-year-old Nigerian right now is basically a mix of ‘God Abeg’ and ‘I can’t come and kill myself.’ Even with fuel prices hitting ₦1,300–₦1,400 per litre and food prices doing a triple jump, the average Nigerian has decided that if the economy wants to dribble us, we will dribble it back, literally.
You wake up. Check your phone. The first WhatsApp message is from your guy in the group chat: ‘Fuel don reach ₦1,400 o. Make we start dey trek go heaven?’ You laugh because what else can you do? Cry? The tears won’t fill your tank.
You calculate. The math is never mathing, but you calculate anyway. Last year, ₦5,000 could get you to work and back for three days. Now? It is one trip. One. And that is if the filling station attendant does not look at you like you are begging for his inheritance.
But here is the thing: you still move.
Nobody has one job anymore. Your colleague who looks sleepy in morning meetings? He is trading forex at 2 AM. The quiet girl in HR? She is running a thrift business on Instagram with 12,000 followers. That intern who just bought a used Corolla? Do not ask questions you do not want answers to.
Crypto. Content creation. Dropshipping. Football betting (no comment). Coding bootcamps. The hustle is so diversified that even the Central Bank is confused about where the money is coming from.
And yes, some of it crashes. The crypto rug-pull. The business partner who ghosts with your capital. The client who pays ‘next week’ for six months. But you cannot come and kill yourself, so you pivot. Always pivot. Then you score.
Maybe it is the client who finally pays. The post that goes viral. The skill that gets you that remote job paying in dollars. The small business that breaks even, then profits, then hires someone else. These are goals. Not the loud, stadium-roaring kind, but the quiet, 2 AM, thank-you-Jesus kind. But they count. They all count.
And sometimes, it is the actual goal.
You saw Akwa Cross on The Gathering’s Instagram page, didn’t you? Same guy, same economy, same wahala. But there he was. He found a field somewhere in this chaotic Lagos. He laced up like the world was not on fire. He buried that ball in the net. Then he posted it. He let all of us watch him celebrate as he just won the league.
That is the energy we are bringing.
The thing about scoring is this: it does not erase the wahala we are all facing, but for that moment, when the ball hits the net, when the notification hits your phone, when the ‘congratulations’ email finally arrives, you remember that you are winning small, specific, undeniable battles.
And now, we are pulling up for the largest gathering of young Nigerians and I am ready for everything. If you have not retweeted for the cause, you should head there NOW.
The economy is still dribbling. The wahala is still wahala-ing. The fuel queue will still be there tomorrow.
But so will we. And we will score!
