NO DRUMS FOR THE NEW YEAR: A GENERATION BETRAYED BY POWER AND FALSE EMPOWERMENT

 NO DRUMS FOR THE NEW YEAR: A GENERATION BETRAYED BY POWER AND FALSE EMPOWERMENT

By Tijjani Sarki 

Good Governance Advocate and Public Policy analyst 

Though I see no reason why Nigerians, especially the youth, should celebrate the New Year, I pause only to thank God for the gift of life. Beyond that, celebration feels dishonest. Our survival is mistaken for progress, yet our lives are gambled with daily by a system that neither protects nor prepares us for the future. Nothing in Nigeria is moving smoothly nothing.

 Institutions are shaky, opportunities are scarce, and hope is rationed. What disturbs me most, and what fuels this anger, is the issue of empowerment a word that should have been a weapon against poverty but has been turned into a tool of political deceit. If sincerely designed and rigorously executed, empowerment alone could resolve over 75 percent of Nigeria’s socio-economic crises, especially youth unemployment, unemployability, and the criminal waste of skills. But instead of liberation, we have been handed humiliation.

I feel embarrassed deeply so whenever I hear public officials preach empowerment. Not because empowerment is weak, but because our leaders have emptied it of meaning. What is paraded before us as empowerment is often nothing more than insult disguised as generosity, small cash handouts, token items, and staged ceremonies that cannot sustain life for a week, let alone build a future. It is degrading. It is dishonest. And it exposes a ruling class that has grown comfortable mocking the desperation of the people it claims to serve.

Empowerment is not charity. It is not an envelope, a photograph, or a seasonal distribution of survival items. True empowerment is structural and deliberate, it is the transfer of skills, access to opportunity, and functional systems that enable citizens, especially youths, to earn with dignity and live with purpose. It is the pathway from dependency to productivity. Anything short of this is political fraud.

Yet across Nigeria, empowerment has been reduced to empty symbolism. Billions of naira are budgeted annually under youth empowerment and poverty alleviation schemes, but the streets remain angry and hungry. Unemployment deepens. Crime festers. Migration becomes the dream. I am forced to ask the question many fear to ask, where are the billions? Funds meant to empower are mismanaged, diverted, or deliberately weakened until they produce no impact. Instead of coherent policy, we get scattered handouts. Instead of long-term planning, we get short-term appeasement. Instead of accountability, we get official silence. This is not governance,it is the exploitation of poverty as a political strategy.

The cruelty of this system is most visible during election seasons. Suddenly, empowerment becomes fashionable. Cash flows briefly. Tools are distributed theatrically. Promises are recycled. Cameras roll. But once votes are secured, the programs vanish, and youths are returned to abandonment. Empowerment becomes seasonal activated by elections and abandoned by leadership. This is not just manipulation,it is a betrayal of a generation.

This approach underestimates the intelligence, resilience, and anger of Nigerian youths. We do not need crumbs, we need capacity. We do not need pity we need policy. We need education aligned with modern economies, vocational training connected to real markets, access to capital backed by mentorship, and deliberate investment in agriculture, technology, and enterprise. Where such structured empowerment has been genuinely implemented, the results are undeniable, youths become employers, communities stabilize, crime reduces, and hope re-emerges.

 That is what real empowerment looks like and that is what this system fears.

The continued misuse of empowerment funds is not merely an economic failure,it is a moral and political collapse. It robs young Nigerians of dignity and holds the nation hostage to stagnation. It is state neglect masked as benevolence.

This is no longer just a lament, it is a warning. Governments at all levels must change course or be confronted by the consequences of prolonged neglect. Empowerment must move from slogans to systems, from announcements to measurable impact, from political theatre to purposeful investment. If billions are truly being spent, then billions worth of lives must be visibly transformed.

Until that happens, the word empowerment will remain hollow an echo of wasted resources, stolen futures, and a generation pushed to the edge. Nigeria stands at a crossroads. History will not be kind to leaders who chose comfort over courage, or deceit over reform. The youth are watching. And patience, like hunger, does not last forever.

Tijjani Sarki

Good Governance Advocate and Public Policy Analyst

Executive Director 

Responsive Citizens Initiative

responsivecitizensinitiative@gmail.com

3rd January,2026