Nigeria has no shortage of problems, but who is building the solutions? My perspective on Tinubu, wealth creation, education, personal responsibility, and why the next generation must become builders of the economy it wants to inherit.
Published
October 28, 2026
Reading time
16 min
Author
CHIBUEZE MAXWELL
Nigeria Is Not Poor Because We Lack Problems. We Are Poor Because We Have Too Few People Solving Them.
My thoughts on leadership, wealth, education, and the mentality of a developing nation.
I have been thinking about something lately.
I believe President Bola Ahmed Tinubu needs to write a book.
And no, I am not saying this because I agree with everything he has done or because I think he is the greatest president Nigeria has ever had.
I am saying this because I find his political journey interesting.
Think about it.
Here is a man who went from being an accountant and corporate executive to becoming a senator, a governor, one of Nigeria's most influential political strategists, and eventually the president of the most populous country in Africa.
If I were to describe that journey using a chessboard, I would call it the journey from a pawn to a king.
Not because he was literally a pawn at the beginning, but because he understood something most people never understand.
The game is not always won by the person with the highest intelligence. Sometimes, it is won by the person who understands the board, the players, the timing, and the consequences of every move.
Now, I see educated Nigerians complaining about Tinubu every single day.
And I ask myself a question.
If navigating the political system of Nigeria were so easy, how many of these people could have made it to his position?
But there is another side to this question.
Being able to win the political game does not automatically mean someone is governing well.
Getting into power requires one kind of intelligence. Using that power to improve the lives of millions requires another.
So I can respect the strategy without blindly defending every outcome.
Take our currency, for example.
In February 2024, Nigerians saw the dollar trade around ₦1,800 to ₦1,900 in the parallel market.
Fast-forward to October 2026, and the official rate has been around ₦1,300 to ₦1,350.
That is a significant recovery from those extreme levels, even though the two figures come from different market segments.
But if the naira appreciates and the average Nigerian still struggles to afford food, electricity, housing, or transportation, then we cannot simply declare victory.
Economic numbers mean something. But the standard of living of the people must mean something too.
Now, beyond Tinubu, there is something about Nigerians that I think we need to confront.
We are becoming extremely good at identifying problems.
Bad roads.
Poor electricity.
Unemployment.
Insecurity.
Expensive food.
Broken institutions.
Poor healthcare.
Everywhere you turn, someone is explaining what is wrong with Nigeria.
And most of them are correct.
But here is what interests me.
What if the problems we complain about every day are also the biggest opportunities for building wealth in this country?
I want you to think about that.
In a developed country, many of the systems people depend on have already been built.
Transportation systems.
Healthcare infrastructure.
Payment networks.
Industrial supply chains.
Digital infrastructure.
Educational systems.
Someone, somewhere, built those things.
And many of the people and companies that solved those problems captured enormous economic value in the process.
Now look at Nigeria.
We have problems almost everywhere.
And I see a country where an enormous amount of building is still waiting to happen.
An unreliable electricity supply is a problem.
But it is also an opportunity for people developing affordable energy solutions.
Agricultural waste is a problem.
But it is also an opportunity for people developing better storage, processing, and distribution systems.
Inefficient hospitals are a problem.
But they are also an opportunity for engineers, healthcare professionals, and entrepreneurs improving medical operations.
Small businesses losing money because they cannot accurately track sales, inventory, and expenses is a problem.
But it is also an opportunity for someone to develop a system that helps them retain more of the money they already earn.
You see what I am getting at?
Every unsolved problem represents an unmet need. And wherever there is an unmet need, there may be an opportunity to create value.
Not every problem is commercially profitable.
Not every solution should be privately owned.
And not everyone has the capital or freedom to build a business.
But the opportunity exists.
This is what I mean when I say that a developing country needs developers.
And I do not mean software developers alone.
I mean people who build the systems that make society function.
The engineers.
The manufacturers.
The researchers.
The entrepreneurs.
The farmers.
The scientists.
The teachers who create better learning systems.
The people willing to turn an observation into a working solution.
Because when you help build part of an economy, you may also participate in the economic value that your work creates.
But there is something else that concerns me.
We have trained ourselves to admire wealth without understanding how wealth is created.
Ask a young Nigerian what they want.
Many will tell you they want to be rich.
Ask them how.
And suddenly the conversation becomes difficult.
They know the lifestyle.
They know the cars.
They know the houses.
They know the places they want to travel.
But they have not identified what they can create that another human being would willingly pay for.
This is where I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding of wealth.
Money is not the starting point of wealth creation. Value is.
Money is one of the ways society measures and exchanges that value.
If I can solve a problem for one person, that person might pay me.
If I can solve the same problem for a thousand people, I have something more interesting.
If I can build a system that solves the problem for a million people without requiring a million times my personal effort, then I have begun to understand scale.
This is why ownership matters.
Because there is a difference between earning money from your time and earning money from a system that continues creating value.
And this brings me to our educational system.
We spend years preparing for a future that nobody has guaranteed us.
Imagine a Nigerian child.
At around three or four years old, the child begins school.
Primary school.
Secondary school.
University.
NYSC, for those who go through that route.
By the time the person is finished, nearly two decades of their life may have been spent following an educational structure.
And what happens next?
They begin searching for employment.
Writing applications.
Submitting CVs.
Waiting for interviews.
Hoping someone somewhere will decide that their skills are worth paying for.
I find something strange about this entire process.
We spend so much time teaching people how to qualify for jobs, but comparatively little time teaching them how jobs are actually created.
How businesses work.
How markets function.
How customers make decisions.
How to identify problems.
How to test ideas.
How to manage money.
How to create, distribute, and sell something useful.
And then we are surprised when graduates struggle to translate their qualifications into economic independence.
I sometimes describe this as producing beggars with collars.
It sounds harsh.
But think about what I mean.
Not that applying for a job is begging. Employment is legitimate, productive, and necessary.
My criticism is of an educational system that can leave someone believing the only use for their knowledge is to ask an existing institution for permission to use it.
A country needs employees.
But it also needs employers.
And before employers exist, someone must build an organization capable of employing others.
Now consider the classroom itself.
The mass-schooling structures that shaped much of modern formal education expanded during the nineteenth century, roughly 150 to 200 years ago.
Age-grouped classes.
Standardized lessons.
Teachers delivering information to students.
Examinations used to measure learning.
Of course, classrooms have changed in important ways. We have computers, digital learning platforms, new teaching methods, and modern research.
But many of the underlying structures remain recognizable.
And I wonder.
Why does a world that changes almost every year still expect so many students to learn through systems designed around the needs of earlier centuries?
We are entering a period where artificial intelligence can help people write software, analyze information, investigate scientific questions, and perform tasks that once required years of specialized technical training.
Yet many students are still rewarded primarily for remembering information and reproducing it during an examination.
I am not saying memory is useless.
I am saying memorization alone is no longer enough.
The question should not only be:
"What do you know?"
It should also be:
"What can you do with what you know?"
"What can you create?"
"What can you improve?"
"What can you prove?"
"What problem can you solve?"
Because knowledge that never meets reality remains incomplete.
And then there is the argument about certificates.
Look at medicine.
Look at engineering.
Look at entrepreneurship.
Look at the history of science.
Many professions existed in some form before the modern universities, professional bodies, and qualifications that now regulate them.
Hippocrates, for example, practiced medicine in ancient Greece long before the existence of modern medical schools.
But that does not mean today's doctors do not need medical degrees.
Modern medicine has developed scientific evidence, standards, training, and safety systems that earlier practitioners did not possess.
I would not want an untrained person operating on my body simply because someone thousands of years ago practiced medicine without a modern certificate.
That would be confusing the history of a profession with the requirements for practicing it safely today.
My point is different.
A certificate is evidence of completing a particular learning process. It is not the boundary of everything a human being is capable of learning, discovering, or creating.
A degree can open doors.
But it does not automatically create competence.
And the absence of a degree does not automatically mean the absence of intelligence.
I think we need a society that respects education without worshipping credentials.
A society where someone can demonstrate what they know through actual work.
Research.
Projects.
Products.
Experiments.
Results.
Because at the end of the day, reality is not interested in how impressive your certificate looks.
Reality is interested in whether the bridge stands, whether the software works, whether the patient receives competent care, and whether the solution actually solves the problem.
Now, let us talk about poverty.
This is where my thinking becomes uncomfortable.
I see so many people struggling financially in Nigeria, and it is a sad reality.
But I also think there are people who have accepted their present circumstances as the final definition of what their lives can become.
They have stopped questioning.
Stopped experimenting.
Stopped learning.
Stopped trying to discover what they can create.
And I wonder how many possibilities die because someone never takes the first serious action.
But I also understand something important.
Poverty is not always the result of bad decisions.
A child born into a poor family did not choose that family.
A farmer displaced by insecurity did not necessarily create that insecurity.
A talented young person without access to electricity, education, capital, or a safe environment faces limitations that cannot simply be wished away by positive thinking.
Those things are real.
But I refuse to believe that recognizing structural problems means we should surrender every form of personal responsibility.
Your circumstances influence your starting position. They do not necessarily determine every move you can make afterward.
Some people have more moves available than others.
That is a reality.
And one responsibility of government is to increase the number of meaningful opportunities available to its citizens.
But another responsibility belongs to the individual.
To identify the moves that are available.
To learn.
To develop useful skills.
To take calculated risks.
To become economically productive.
To build something.
To act.
Because awareness without action changes very little.
You can understand poverty intellectually and still remain financially stagnant.
You can read a hundred books about business and never speak to a customer.
You can spend years studying technology and never build a product someone uses.
You can discuss the Nigerian economy every morning and still have no strategy for participating in it.
And that is where I think many of us are losing.
We keep waiting for Nigeria to become a developed country before deciding to become developers.
This is perhaps the biggest contradiction I see.
Everyone wants better infrastructure.
But how many of us are studying how infrastructure is financed, designed, maintained, and improved?
Everyone wants employment.
But how many of us are studying how companies become profitable enough to employ people?
Everyone wants a stronger economy.
But how many of us are thinking about productivity, manufacturing, exports, innovation, and building businesses that generate real value?
We want the outcomes of a developed nation.
But we cannot outsource the entire process of development to politicians.
Now, before someone misunderstands me, I am not excusing bad governance.
A government collects taxes, controls public resources, establishes institutions, and makes decisions that affect millions of lives.
It must be held accountable.
Complaining about corruption, insecurity, unemployment, or poor infrastructure is not necessarily laziness.
Sometimes public criticism is the beginning of political accountability.
But there is a difference between criticism that leads to action and criticism that becomes a permanent substitute for action.
That distinction matters.
Because if all we do is identify failures without organizing, building, demanding accountability, or attempting solutions, then we become spectators in the development of our own country.
Another thing I think Nigerians need to understand is the difference between income and wealth.
You can earn a high salary and still have very little wealth.
You can run a business that generates millions in revenue and still be financially unstable.
You can build something valuable and lose ownership of it.
Income is money coming in.
Wealth is more closely connected to the assets you own, the liabilities you carry, and the ability of those assets to preserve or create value over time.
This is why I think young people need to learn more than how to make money.
They need to understand how money works.
How capital is allocated.
How businesses generate profit.
How ownership works.
How intellectual property works.
How investments compound.
How risk destroys poorly managed wealth.
And how solving a real problem can create an asset worth considerably more than the initial effort required to build it.
But I also see people chasing wealth without wanting to understand the process.
Everyone wants to become a billionaire.
Very few want to spend years studying an industry, understanding customers, building systems, managing people, enduring failures, and making difficult decisions.
We admire the final position on the chessboard.
But we rarely study the moves.
And this brings me back to Tinubu.
Whatever anyone thinks of him politically, his rise offers a case study in strategy, relationships, institutions, timing, persistence, and power.
That does not make every decision he has taken correct.
Nor does it make his journey a model of every value a leader should possess.
But there is something to study.
And I think we should develop the ability to study people without automatically worshipping or hating them.
Learn what works.
Question what does not.
Separate competence from character.
Separate political success from national progress.
And never confuse the ability to acquire power with the ability to use it responsibly.
My final thought is about the future of Nigeria.
I do not believe Nigeria will become prosperous simply because we discover another politician who promises to fix everything.
Leadership matters enormously.
Institutions matter.
Infrastructure matters.
The rule of law matters.
Education matters.
But we also need a generation of people who understand that national development is something human beings actually build.
Brick by brick.
Company by company.
Discovery by discovery.
Institution by institution.
We need people who look at a broken system and ask whether they can understand it well enough to improve it.
People who stop measuring success only by the job they obtain and begin measuring it by the value they create.
People who do not mistake entrepreneurship for merely registering a company or putting CEO in their social media biographies.
Because building a company is not the same as announcing one.
A business that cannot attract customers, deliver value, pay its obligations, and eventually sustain itself is not yet the economic engine we imagine it to be.
And I think that is where the next generation must become more serious.
Not every Nigerian needs to become an entrepreneur.
A nation also needs excellent doctors, engineers, teachers, researchers, technicians, civil servants, and skilled employees.
But every Nigerian should have the opportunity to become productive, capable, and economically independent.
And those of us who choose to build businesses should understand that our ambitions carry responsibilities.
If you become wealthy by solving a problem, excellent.
But ask yourself whether the solution genuinely improves lives.
Whether the people working with you are treated fairly.
Whether the value you extract is justified by the value you create.
Because a country does not become developed simply by producing more wealthy individuals.
It becomes developed when productivity grows, institutions improve, opportunities expand, and prosperity reaches more of its population.
So when I look at Nigeria, I do not only see poverty.
I see systems that need to be redesigned.
I see industries that need innovation.
I see problems waiting for serious people to study them.
I see millions of young people whose abilities could become economically valuable if they had better opportunities, better tools, and the willingness to use them.
And I see a question that I think everyone who wants a better Nigeria should ask themselves.
If the Nigeria you want does not exist yet, what exactly are you doing to help build it?
Because it is easy to demand a developed nation.
It is much harder to participate in developing one.
And perhaps that is the challenge of our generation.
Not simply to inherit a better Nigeria.
But to become part of the generation that builds it.
A country's problems are not automatically its wealth. But the ability to solve those problems can become one of its greatest sources of wealth.
And that is the difference between merely living in a developing country and becoming one of its developers.