“Our Time is Now: Positioning Nigerian Youth for Change”

Molly Carlile, Author of Jelly Beans and Dead Serious Podcast Network, stated "If I’ve learned one thing in the past months it has been to save the energy I used to expend on being angry about injustice and put that energy into thinking and feeling joy, prosperity, sustainability, health and justice for all. This is what will change the world…a ground swell of people pouring their energy into manifesting their “preferred future” instead of being worn down by disillusion and disappointment."

It is so easy to get carried away by all the things around us worth venting our anger on. But then, we end up spending a lot of time being angry, being problem focused, with no room in our mind to think-solution or proffer innovative solutions to those very things that upset us.

LEAPAfrica has given me a new responsibility, to step up to a new level of Leadership, Effectiveness, Accountability and Professionalism. It looks like yesterday when I first ventured out to Ebutte-Metta to look for a young leader called Dayo Israel to show me how to be an active youth making change. With his team, I learnt about the importance of youth volunteering. In the course of it all, I have learned that although it seems so difficult to effect the change we want to see, we must never give up. A new culture to adopt: let us be more solution focused and stop dwelling on analysis of the problems.

In reminisce; I dedicate the LEAPAfrica award to God, my number one source of inspiration. I also would like to thank my family and friends for their support, despite my “unconventional behavior”. So much appreciation to Mr. Lekan Otufodurnrin for giving me a platform for “Dis generation” in the Nation newspaper. And to Pastor Tunde Bakare, for his contagious passion for God and a new Nigeria.


Emily Elizabeth Dickinson once wrote: “We never know how high we are, till we are asked to rise, and then if we are true to plan, our statures touch the skies -The Heroism we recite would be a normal thing. Did not ourselves the Cubits warp for fear to be a King”. So many youths today have allowed themselves to be boxed in, “the Cubits warp for fear to be a King”. It is imperative that we all rise up to the call and take the lead in being the positive change we want to see in Nigeria.

Today, we young people in Nigeria have been called to rise and we must stay true to plan. God’s grace is ever sufficient. Nigeria will flourish again- there is hope in our future and a future in our hope.

Meet the winners! (I was covering the Young Laureate Programme in Geneva so my friend represented me during the award ceremony back in Lagos). The best is yet to come, by God's grace!