There’s a sentence Nigerians throw around casually: “You know how this generation is.” It usually comes with an eye-roll, as though confidence is a crime. We’ve been called loud, stubborn, entitled, a generation that refuses to “respect the order of things.” But maybe that’s because the old order has not protected us.
Our parents and grandparents survived by making themselves small. Their silence kept the family fed. Their humility kept them safe. We honour their sacrifice. But survival has changed shape. In a world that notices only those who stand tall, shrinking has become a dangerous tradition.
We are learning a new kind of survival: to show up boldly.
I see it every day, in vivid hair colours, in fashion that doesn’t apologise, in the refusal to bend our accents into borrowed identities. We are not watering down our authenticity anymore. The same world that once mocked Afrobeats now competes to headline it. Nollywood films are topping global charts. Our slang travels faster than many of our passports are allowed to.
We are visible. And visibility is a kind of power older generations were denied.
This confidence isn’t only in music and style. It is in personal choices: the young woman who refuses to endure suffering as a virtue, the young man who picks a creative path over a “respectable” one, the friend who books therapy without shame. We are speaking up about mental health, identity, gender, and the pressures we carry, topics that earlier generations were forced to swallow quietly.
Our dreams are loud, even in a country determined to mute ambition.
Let’s also be honest: the criticism we face is not new. Every era of change starts with discomfort. Even the elders we revere today once challenged their own systems. Fela was a disruption. Now he is a legacy. What was once viewed as rebellion eventually becomes the culture others stand on.
We are not disrespecting tradition.
We are rejecting the version of tradition that demanded we diminish ourselves.
A bit of perspective: More than 70% of Nigerians are under 30 — the youngest large population on earth. We are the majority. We are the workforce. We are the culture. We are the future leadership pipeline. You cannot silence the future and expect progress.
Historically, our confidence was shaken by colonial conditioning that mocked our languages and identities. But today’s Nigerian youth are collecting the pieces and rebuilding what it means to be African, without asking permission.
Of course, we stumble. Confidence sometimes rushes. Not every loud idea is a revolutionary one. And yes, Nigeria’s systems test our patience daily. But even when the country bends our backs, our spirit refuses to bow.
This is not arrogance.
This is healing.
Healing from shame that never belonged to us.
Healing from survival modes we have outgrown.
Healing from the idea that dignity must whisper.
One day, the same people who say “these children are doing too much” will look back and realise they witnessed a cultural rebirth. The confidence they feared is the confidence that will build the Nigeria they pray for.
We are no longer begging the world to see us.
We see ourselves clearly now.
And we are done shrinking, because a nation that refuses to shrink has no choice but to rise.
Written by: Miracle Chinwendu Amadi
