The Future Is In the Fractures

Democracy in Nigeria is hard to hold onto. It’s like water in a woven basket...meant to be ours, but always slipping through the holes.

We’re taught in school that power belongs to the people. That every vote counts. That the system exists to serve us. But somewhere between theory and practice, the cracks begin to show. The promises leak. And by the time we’re old enough to participate, many of us are already disillusioned.

This is the state I was in when I walked into the Yiaga Africa 's Gen Z Democratic Innovation Lab on July 23rd. Curious, open, but a little tired. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew we’d be talking about democracy, but I didn’t know how emotional that conversation would be. Or how deeply it would reflect the pent-up frustration so many young people like me carry every day.

At the Lab, we talked about what it feels like to be born into a system that calls itself democratic but often behaves otherwise. We unpacked our cynicism, our reluctance, and the distance between ourselves and the state. But we also talked about ideas...crazy, bold, and radical ones we'd implement if given a blank cheque. The kind that reminds you that even if democracy isn’t working as it should, people are still working for it.

Since that day, I’ve been thinking a lot about democracy, not the capital “D” kind that politicians preach during campaigns, but the daily, lived kind. And honestly, democracy in Nigeria feels like trying to belong to a system that was not built with you in mind.

I’ve worked in spaces that call themselves democratic. I’ve supported a couple of civic projects, sat in on strategy meetings, and even worked in organizations that engaged directly with government institutions. But in all of that, there’s always been this silent undertone: that to belong in these systems, you must first learn how to survive their dysfunction.

You learn how to send travel several miles, multiple times over, for one simple approval. You learn that your best ideas might die as a concept note because someone “at the top” didn’t think it was realistic. You learn that asking questions can make you the problem, even if you’re asking on behalf of the people democracy claims to serve.

And yet, like so many others, I keep showing up.

The Gen Z Democratic Innovation Lab made me realize just how much showing up matters. Not because we have all the answers, we don’t. But because we’re willing to ask the uncomfortable questions and name what isn’t working. We spoke about performative governance, about how young Nigerians are praised for being “leaders of tomorrow” but are rarely trusted with decisions today. We unpacked our weariness. Our sharp tongues and folded arms. Our distance from political institutions that don’t feel like they were made for us.

But we also dreamed. And in our dreaming, I saw possibility.

It's definitely not the neat, rehearsed kind that fits into PowerPoint slides. But raw, honest, deeply personal visions of a country where democracy isn’t just about voting, but about voice. Where our civic participation doesn’t end at the ballot box, but stretches into budgeting rooms, legislative drafts, community organizing, and school debates.

Still, the reality is this: democracy, in practice, is hard to believe in when the systems around it are broken.

When justice is selective. When corruption is normalized. When the people entrusted to lead are often the first to abuse power. Young people are tokenized, without any real plan for succession or inclusion.

So we adapt. We protest online. We write. We build tech. We volunteer for organizations. We host Twitter/X Spaces. We vote, even when we know it might not count. We push, even when the wall doesn’t move.

But I’ve come to see that what we’re doing is more than just coping. It’s a form of resistance. A declaration that says: even if this system doesn’t recognize me, I will still shape it.

Democracy in Nigeria may be wounded, but it is not dead. It lives in our refusal to be silent. In our restlessness. In our experiments. In our conversations - like the ones we had at the Lab -that remind us we’re not alone.

Call me delusional, but I believe the real work is not in waiting for a perfect system to emerge, but in choosing to belong, even when the structure resists you. It's in saying, “I will stay in this room, ask my questions, build my project, cast my vote, write my essays,” not because the system deserves it, but because the future does.

We may be navigating broken systems, but we’re not broken people.

A/N

Thank you to the Yiaga Africa team for holding that space so powerfully, and to Samson Itodo , whose leadership reminds us that democracy is not an ideal we wait for, but a practice we build, one voice at a time.