The solution resolution

The crackle of the video call seemed to carry the static of defeat. On my screen, framed by the sterile beige of a London apartment, was the face of an old friend—a brilliant mind that once dreamed in the vibrant, chaotic hues of Lagos. We spoke of home, and his words landed with the finality of a closing vault. “I’m done,” he said, his voice devoid of anger, which made it all the more chilling. “I’m forfeiting my claim. I’m leaving Nigeria for those who decide to stay.” His statement, so stark and resolute, was more than a personal decision; it was a manifesto of surrender, a perfect encapsulation of the japa syndrome that has seen some of our sharpest talents conclude that building abroad is easier than building home.

His new view, a meticulously ordered British street, was his reward for what he saw as a logical retreat. Yet, as I wished him well, a counterpoint history began to scream in my mind. That very Britain, now his sanctuary of order, was not always thus. It was not built by generations who looked at the Blitz’s rubble or the Industrial Revolution’s soot-choked misery and said, “I am done.” It was built by those who stayed, who sacrificed lives, energy, and comfort in the grim, patient work of incremental betterment. They resolved to solve, through plague, war, and strife, and their progeny inherited not just stability, but a nation forged by their stubborn resolve. My friend was enjoying the dividend of a resolution made centuries ago, while declaring our own future untenable.

This moment, this personal microcosm of a national hemorrhage, crystallises the profound fork in the road that 2025 has laid before us. The year has been a relentless accelerator of fate, a chain reaction of events that has stripped away all illusions and comfortable middles. It was the year the tangible consequences of governance became too visceral to ignore, where the abstract “economy” morphed into the specific weight of empty pots and silent generators. It was a year where long-simmering tensions reached a boil, not just in politics, but in the collective psyche, forcing a fundamental question: is this a terminal diagnosis, or the brutal, necessary onset of labour? The events of 2025, from the stark economic shocks to the unsettling security challenges, were not merely problems; they were the final, unignorable stimuli. They have presented us with a radical, binary choice: a permanent exodus of hope, or an ironclad collective resolution to become the builders our history demands. For 2026 to be anything but a prelude to further decline, our resolution must be singular and non-negotiable: we resolve to solve. This is not a vague hope or a political slogan; it is the conscious, deliberate pivot from being a generation that analyses the crisis to the cohort that engineers the solution.

We stand, right now, at the most consequential inflection point in Africa’s modern story. The world’s geopolitical and economic plates are shifting, and for the first time in recorded history, the continent is whispered about not as a charity case, but as the next frontier, the next engine. To walk away from Nigeria now is not just to abandon a country; it is to forfeit a seat at the epic table of the 21st century’s most dramatic transformation. Consider this: we will all, someday, be on our deathbeds. The measure of our satisfaction will not be the comfort we curated for ourselves in a foreign land, but the legacy we etched into the canvas of history. Those in the developed world inherit a completed puzzle; their struggle is often one of maintenance, of nuanced improvement within a settled paradigm. Their lives are comfortable, but comfort is not the same as fulfillment. We, however, inherit a blank canvas. We have misery, yes, but we also have the raw, electric chance to reinvent the wheel, to rediscover fire, to build systems from the ground up. They live in houses built by their great-grandparents; we have the dizzying, terrifying, glorious opportunity to be the great-grandparents. We have the chance to be the names in future textbooks, the generation that stared into the abyss of 2025 and chose not to flee, but to build a bridge into 2026… and beyond.

The future is Africa. This is not a platitude but a demographic, economic, and strategic reality slowly dawning on the world. The question is whether Nigeria, its beating heart, will lead this future or be dragged behind it. The heavy lifting falls to us—the generation scarred by the locust years but hardened by them.

The “japa” narrative is a seductive one, offering immediate relief from pain. But it is, in the grand sweep of history, a small story. The epic story, the one that satisfies the soul’s deep craving for meaning, is the story of staying. It is the story of applying the genius currently being drained into foreign economies to our own stubborn soil. It is the story of looking at our crumbling infrastructure and seeing not a graveyard, but a construction site. It is the story of looking at our complex problems and seeing the only career worthy of our lifespan: the career of solutioneering.

Therefore, let 2026 be our “Solution Resolution.” Let it be the year we, the destined builders, formally accept our commission. This means moving from critique to code, from protest to policy draft, from sharing problems to engineering systems that solve them. It means leveraging our connectivity to crowdsource innovation, our digital native skills to bypass legacy failures, and our collective trauma to fuel an empathy-driven reconstruction. The UK my friend now calls home was built by people who resolved to solve through centuries. Our timeline is compressed, our tools more powerful, our potential impact more profound. We have a shot at lives of monumental satisfaction, of being part of the greatest story our continent will ever tell.

The chain reaction of 2025 has set the stage. In 2026, we must resolve to be the reaction that recalibrates our destiny. The canvas is blank. The tools are in our hands. History is not watching those who leave; it is waiting, breathlessly, for those who decide to stay.

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