Writers 
THE BUILDING GENERATION — DAY 2
So, What Exactly Are You Building?
Yesterday, we asked whether everyone really starts from the same place. Today, we ask what we are doing with the place we have been given.
There is a question I think young people should ask themselves more often.
Not “What do you want to become?”
Not “How much money do you want to make?”
Not even “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
But this:
What are you building?
Because there is a difference between having a dream and building something that can carry the dream.
You can say you want to own a business, but what are you learning about business?
You can say you want to become a writer, but are you writing?
You can say you want to help people, but what are you learning that can make your help useful?
You can say you want to change your community, but do you understand the community you want to change?
You can say you want a better Nigeria, but what are you personally contributing to the Nigeria you complain about every day?
These questions are not meant to shame anybody.
They are meant to wake us up.
Because it is very easy to spend our youth preparing to start.
We are always planning.
“One day I will…”
One day I will start the business.
One day I will learn the skill.
One day I will write the book.
One day I will create the platform.
One day I will mentor younger people.
One day I will contribute to society.
One day.
But one day is not a building material.
At some point, we have to put something down.
A skill.
An idea.
A page.
A prototype.
A conversation.
A business.
A community.
A solution.
Something.
And perhaps this is where we need to have another honest conversation about opportunity.
Not everyone has access to the same resources. In Nigeria, access to education, digital tools, skills development and pathways into work varies considerably. UNICEF has recently highlighted barriers involving location, social exclusion, disability, gender and unequal access to services, while young Nigerians participating in employment consultations have called for better connections between skills and actual livelihoods.
So yes, circumstances matter.
They matter a lot.
But circumstances cannot be the only question.
There is another question:
Given where I am, what can I begin building from here?
Maybe you don't have a laptop yet.
Can you start with your phone?
Maybe you don't have money to start the business you imagined.
Can you start learning the market?
Maybe nobody knows your name.
Can you become good enough that your work eventually introduces you?
Maybe you didn't have access to the education someone else received.
What can you learn now?
Maybe your family situation has made life harder than you expected.
Can you find one thing within your reach and begin there?
This isn't about pretending that everybody can simply “work hard” and magically overcome structural problems.
They can't.
Some doors genuinely require resources.
Some opportunities genuinely depend on networks.
Some people need support before they can even begin.
That is why building cannot only mean building for ourselves.
This is where the conversation becomes bigger.
If I have knowledge, can I share it?
If I have access to an opportunity, can I tell someone else about it?
If I have learned a skill, can I teach another person?
If I have a platform, whose voice can I amplify?
If I have resources, can I create room for someone who doesn't?
If I am a writer, can my writing do more than entertain people for five minutes?
Because maybe the goal isn't simply to become the person who made it out.
Maybe the goal is to become the person who leaves the door open behind them.
Look at what youth-development initiatives are increasingly trying to do: connect young people not just to training, but to digital learning, employment pathways, mentorship, entrepreneurship and opportunities to participate in their communities. UNICEF's Generation Unlimited Nigeria reported reaching millions of young people through such pathways, while newer consultations are explicitly asking young people to help shape the solutions themselves.
And that brings me back to us.
What are we building?
Because consumption is not building.
Watching ten videos about entrepreneurship is not the same as starting something.
Saving fifty motivational posts is not the same as changing a habit.
Reading about writing is not writing.
Talking about community development is not community development.
Complaining about bad leadership is not the same thing as learning how systems work and finding your own place within the solution.
We cannot all do the same thing.
And we shouldn't.
One person may build a company.
Another may build a school.
Another may build software.
Another may build a research project.
Another may build a community.
Another may build a family that breaks a painful cycle.
Another may build through art.
Another may build through science.
Another may build through writing.
Building does not always look impressive from the outside.
Sometimes it looks like a young person quietly learning.
Sometimes it looks like somebody refusing to repeat what damaged them.
Sometimes it looks like a student taking their education seriously.
Sometimes it looks like a young woman learning financial independence.
Sometimes it looks like a boy teaching his younger siblings what nobody taught him.
Sometimes it is simply choosing to become useful.
And maybe that is the question we need to carry this week:
Are we only trying to have a better life, or are we also trying to leave behind a better world?
Because there will eventually be young people coming after us.
They will inherit our systems.
Our ideas.
Our businesses.
Our institutions.
Our mistakes.
Our knowledge.
Our writing.
Our culture.
Our environment.
Our solutions or our unfinished problems.
And they may ask us one day:
“When you were young, what were you building?”
I hope our answer is more than:
“I was trying to survive.”
I hope we can say:
“Yes, I was trying to survive. But while I was surviving, I also learned. I created. I helped. I questioned. I shared. I opened doors. I built something.”
So today, don't just ask yourself what you want.
Ask yourself:
What am I building?
And then ask something even harder:
Who will benefit from what I build?
Because perhaps our generation doesn't need another motivational speech.
Perhaps we need a generation that builds.
And perhaps that building can begin with something as small as one person deciding:
I will not only complain about what is broken.
I will start becoming part of what needs to be built
