When Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in as President in May 2015, a bulk of the oldest Gen Z Nigerians were writing their second or third-year exams in the University; the younger ones were sitting WAEC exams for the first time; the rich kids were waiting for NYSC kits; some adolescents were making only their very first tweets while the youngins were just stepping into primary schools.
And although this demography came from many different circumstances, one thing united them: they were all still figuring out how to do this life thing, unaware that the man entering into Aso Rock – Bubu, as he was disaffectionately called – would shape their most decisive coming-of-age years.
By 2023, when the tenure of the General ended, a generation had not just grown older, they had been forged in scarcity, struggle, protest, migration, hustle, and grit. Gen Zs didn’t just live under Buhari, they felt him in their diet choices, bank balances, on their timelines, in their lecture halls, and in the stamps on their passports. This obituary chronicles it all.
Japa: The Eventual Emergence of a ‘Nigerian Dream’.
What, exactly, is the Nigerian Dream? For decades, the question echoed in newspaper columns, secondary school debates, radio studios, jaw wars, Nairaland and other new media platforms. Years later, a new generation would appear to find its own bleak and quickfix answer in a single, four-letter Yoruba word: Japa.
Before japa as a Nigerian dream and even survival strategy became backed by visa applications and IELTS scores, it was just a regular street lingo. The term was, however, supercharged into the mainstream by Afrobeats artiste Naira Marley, who dropped the hit song “Japa” on May 14, 2018.
And speaking of cultural impact – a hot topic on the timeline recently – it’s worth noting that while some artists may debate their influence, this one track did more than just get streams; it gave a name to a national movement and permanently altered a generation’s lexicon. The receipts are, as they say, everywhere.
Instantly, japa became the internet’s favourite slang for a quick escape – from bad dates, awkward situations, or parasitic relationships. But embedded within the song’s catchy hook were the lyrics that would define a generation’s ambition: “Japa japa, japa lo London / Japa japa, ja wo Canada.”
The shift from slang to a serious migration goal was immediate. Just ten days after the song’s release, on May 24, 2018, user @afobaje_X tweeted, “Ma tan ra e. If you see way no japa. Struggling is easier where the system is working.”
By July, the movement was undeniable. As user @UnclebeeOla declared on July 3, 2018, “Japa is the new wave.” By the end of that year, the term was cemented. It was in the despairing plea of @lsfdynamite on September 28, 2018: Please who can help me with American Visa abeg… mofe japa; and in the straightforward advice from @theayoadams on the same day: Quote of the day: Get your visa and japa!
What started as a pop-culture moment had captured the mood of a generation. The phrase had become a lifeline. So much so that between 2020 and 2022, the UK Home Office reported that student visas issued to Nigerians surged from around 9,355 to nearly 58,887, a nearly 530% rise. And by August 2022, that number reached 65,929—up over 600 percent from 2019. Nigeria became the third-largest nationality receiving study visas to the UK alone that year.
Dependents followed. The UK Home Office added that by late 2022, Nigeria led all countries with over 60,900 dependent visas, a massive leap from just around 1,500 in 2019. Across Canada, Australia, and EU study channels, similar spikes mirrored that trajectory.
For Gen Zs, during Buhari’s tenure migrating wasn’t just ambition, it became a necessity. Social media brimmed with “welcome to a new dispensation” threads, relocation vlogs, and explainer content for hopefuls.
“Lazy Nigerian Youths” But With Multiple Skills and Degrees. Joke’s On Bubu.
Buhari’s democratic rule saw two national recessions, in 2016 and again in 2020. Youth unemployment spiraled, hitting around 33.3% by late 2020, compared to just 8.2% mid-2015. The World Bank reported youth unemployment of 42.5% in early 2021.
Yet, the former President once remarked in London during his tenure that young Nigerians only wanted “free education, free healthcare, free housing, and no work.” That didn’t just sting, it made many Gen Zs feel dismissed by a government they couldn’t access and yet was not self-aware. What do they call the combination of delusion and lack of self-awareness again? Delaware. lmao.
Graduation no longer guaranteed a job. Campuses shut under repeated strikes. Youths turned into gig-workers—freelancing, UX design, e-commerce, teaching English online, to mention a few. Hustle threads replaced campus hangouts.
This exhausting cycle of endless upskilling became the lived reality for millions. The pressure to stack skills wasn’t just about ambition; it was about survival in an economy that seemed designed to frustrate them. This experience is perfectly captured in a previous story we published, “Barber, Graduate, Tech Bro—Yet, Life Still Dey Show Me Shege.”
The piece follows a young man who does everything society asks of him—he learns a trade, gets a degree, and even pivots to tech—only to find himself constantly chasing the next “new oil” while the promise of a stable life remains elusive. His story, like countless others, serves as a powerful testament to a generation that was anything but lazy as Buhari describes them, yet was still being shown shege on a daily.
Sapa: We Learned a New Word When Inflation Ate Us For Breakfast
If japa was the verb for the generation’s exit strategy, “sapa” became the noun for the condition they were fleeing from. Unlike many slangs though, sapa doesn’t appear to have a clear origin in any of Nigeria’s major languages. Its first notable appearance in contemporary culture was a lyric in the December 2019 song “Thankful,” featuring Wizkid and Blaq Jerzee, which warned: “Who no know, make e come dey know o / Sapa dey kill person o.”
The phrase simmered for nearly a year before it exploded onto the Naija timeline, perfectly timed with a national recession. Its arrival can be traced to a specific moment. On October 18, 2020, user Ayo (@realworldayo) tweeted the exact lyric: “Sapa dy kill person oo.” When another user immediately replied, “Wetin be sapa,” @realworldayo gave the one-word definition that would stick forever: “Brokeness.”
In the weeks that followed, the word spread like wildfire, becoming the universally understood term for a unique, soul-crushing state of intense poverty. It wasn’t just being broke; it was a debilitating condition, a generational diagnosis.
When Gen Zs entered their 20s, basic staples had become luxuries. Between May 2015 and July 2022, Nigeria’s consumer price index rose by 170.2%, while food inflation soared 209.5%. By 2023, inflation hit a 17‑year high above 21%. Food prices exploded, brown beans, bread, tomato, rice, tripling or more.
Young Nigerians hustled, but the currency didn’t stretch. Meals that cost ₦150 in 2015 now cost ₦600 or more. Minimum wage stagnated. Rent, transport, data costs, school fees, all rose relentlessly. One meal could eat half a day’s stipend. It was the prices of food eating us up. Thus, conversations around beating sapa became a bonding experience. Gen Zs had to be the generation that turned economic hardship into top-tier banter because what else could we do?
#EndSARS and #LekkiTollGateMassacre: Who Ordered The Shootings?
In October 2020, young Nigerians had gathered at Lekki Toll Gate with fists in the air seeking better policing measures. They came to protest SARS brutality, but mostly, they came to hope that they’d be listened to. That hope turned tragic on the night of October 20 in full glare of the streaming public.
Soldiers arrived. The lights went out. Then it rained live bullets. At least 12 people died at the gate, and dozens more across the state as streams showed distressed faces at the scene.
“Who ordered the shootings?” Years later, this remains the most haunting question of the Buhari era. In the immediate aftermath and during the Judicial Panel hearings that followed, a chain of denials became the official state response. Fingers were pointed at Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who claimed he didn’t give the order; at political godfather – now President – Bola Tinubu, who pointedly said, “I did not order this or any assault against anybody”; and at the military chiefs, who offered conflicting accounts.
Yet, for a former military general like President Buhari, the principle of a chain of command is absolute. The Nigerian Constitution is clear: the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the final authority from whom the military takes its orders. This constitutional reality made the persistent denials from government representatives like Lai Mohammed feel like a coordinated campaign of obfuscation.
As official channels failed to provide clarity, academics and researchers began the work of countering the state-sponsored narrative. This became a battle of information, with scholars like Azeez Okeyale producing studies such as “Lekki Toll Gate Shootings, #EndSARS and Strategic Information Warfare in Nigeria; Exploring the Liberatory Power of New Media and Digital Publishing Platforms in an ‘Autocratic’ Political Environment” to document the truth and challenge the government’s account.
Despite repeated denials, the Lagos Judicial Panel later confirmed the violence took place. That night – and the standing on business in subsequent years – showed that while singing the anthem may not always save one’s life, it is better to stand for something than fall for anything. And that nothing should ever take away our resolve of speaking truth to power even under threats.
What’s good for Alakada is not good for Zahra Buhari.
ASUU’s record during Buhari’s term was brutal. By May 2023, faculty unions had clocked over 1,086 strike days nationally, with some counts placing university-specific strikes at over 700 days. For Gen Zs, this meant that between the 2017, 2018–19, 2020’s 9-month shutdown, and the 2022 strike, many spent more time waiting at home than learning in lecture halls. A four-year degree stretched to six. Confidence in the entire tertiary education system collapsed.
The irony wasn’t lost on anyone. While public universities in Nigeria were shut, our President was a frequent globetrotter, seeking healthcare not at home, but in London. Over his eight-year tenure, President Buhari spent well over 200 days abroad on medical leave, creating a jarring split-screen reality for the youth. This sense of abandonment was sharpened in September 2022, when, in the midst of a seven-month-long ASUU strike, it was reported that one of his own daughters had graduated from a university in the UK. The message, though unspoken, was clear: the system at home was not good enough for his family, yet it was deemed acceptable for the citizens he led.
The contrast was stark: Nigerian students were forced to put their lives on hold for months on end due to underfunded and neglected educational institutions, while their president utilised a world-class health system thousands of miles away. In a final, poignant turn that many saw as a fitting end to this narrative of disconnect, it was reported that the former president passed away in London—the very city that served as his refuge from the broken systems he presided over back home.
We Will Treat Them In The Language They Understand …And Then Twitter Went Dark.
The phrase “We will treat them in the language they understand” became one of the most defining (and chilling) statements of President Buhari’s second term. In a tweet on June 1, 2021, addressing rising secessionist agitations, Buhari referenced the brutal Nigerian Civil War, warning that those “misbehaving” would be treated “in the language they understand”.
For millions of Nigerians, this wasn’t just a political statement; it was a direct threat that pointed as a preference for force over dialogue, especially in view of what had happened at the Lekki Toll Gate one year before. The backlash was swift. Amidst sharp criticisms and reports from Nigerians, Twitter deleted the tweet for violating its rules, leading the Buhari administration to retaliate by banning the platform entirely in Nigeria for 222 days – an act that crippled businesses, silenced dissent, and disconnected a generation from the global public.
For Gen Zs born into laptops and hashtag activism, Twitter wasn’t just an app, it was the marketsquare. During the ban, broadcasters were ordered to suspend use of official X (Formerly Twitter) handles. VPNs became a phone essential and yet a contraband. And the economic impact was sharp, with losses estimated at about ₦90 million per hour or over ₦546 billion total.
Gen Zs pivoted to Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, but the outage felt like an erasure of their voice. It was a message by the late President: your digital life could be turned off if my ego is bruised.
Jí, Má Sùn: A Generation Reawakens Its Political Consciousness.
If Gen Zs were politically asleep in 2015 or even too young to contribute meaningfully to the process, the years that followed served as a brutal alarm clock. The first loud ring came from Omoyele Sowore whose brand of activism is known to target collaboration with young student leaders across campuses.
Ahead of the 2019 elections, his “Take It Back” movement and presidential campaign presented a radical departure from the political norm. For the first time, many young and frustrated Nigerians saw a candidate who spoke their language, campaigned tirelessly across states, and harnessed the power of crowdfunding from both home and abroad.
Sowore’s subsequent arrests and incarcerations for organizing protests sent a clear message: speaking up against the Buhari government carried a heavy price, but his defiance lit a fire for many. He demonstrated that challenging the status quo was possible, even if dangerous.
That initial spark erupted into a full-blown inferno by 2023. The groundwork laid by early activists appeared grossly incomparable to the wave of the “Obidient” movement, which saw the political energy of Gen Zs coalesce around former Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi, with unprecedented force.
Initially dismissed by political rivals as just “four people tweeting in a room,” the movement proved to be a genuine populist groundswell. As documented in the piece, “‘Four Men Tweeting in a Room’: How Peter Obi Powered a Modern Ballot Revolution in Nigeria,” Gen Zs weren’t just voters this time; they were the campaign. They created infographics, hosted digital town halls, organised grassroots rallies, and built a formidable political force.
Though the outcome of the 2023 election was marred by irregularities, the lesson was learned. Power, Gen Zs realized, lies in participation. Silence was no longer a safe option.
Gen Zs didn’t merely witness Buhari’s presidency; they lived its turbulence. Downturn of economic fortunes, tear gases at protest grounds, queues at VFS and Consulates, social media censorship, and academic hiccups. Yet, this generation also built ingenuity from the pressure – building startups, starting hustles, chronicling injustices and soro sokeing than ever before. You survived Buharinomics. You, my dear, are the real MVP.
