If you’re currently a 9-5er in Nigeria and not earning at least 500k/month, you’re NOT living for yourself - yes, you’ll make enough “to get by” but you will NEVER break out of the poverty cycle.
If your current monthly salary is less than N500k, it will take you 15-20yrs with aggressive savings of N100k/mnth, to build and own a small bungalow that cost 25-30 million Naira, excluding land & high cost of living, naira devaluation, and emergencies.
Now the question is this, if your current job can’t retire you with a real estate or can only give you 20 million Naira cash in 15yrs after savings, why are you there? - the obvious unanimous answer will be “to survive”, and I’ll ask you finally, “for what?”
It now makes sense why a lot of us in Nigeria are depressed and don’t even know we unintentionally depict this depression in our immediate thoughts and actions within our collective environment. Because when you clock it, charle!
A Gen Z joined the team.
Week one.
During onboarding, the manager said,
“We sometimes stay late during peak periods.”
Gen Z nodded.
Then asked,
“Is that paid… or just expected?”
The room went quiet.
- No attitude.
- No rebellion.
- Just a question.
Later that day, HR mentioned “growth opportunities.”
Gen Z replied,
“Does growth include raises, or just more responsibility?”
Again, silence.
- No laziness.
- No entitlement.
- Just clarity.
That’s when the team realized something.
When people say
“Gen Z is lazy,”
what they really mean is:
Gen Z watched old generation
- skip meals,
- miss birthdays,
- work weekends,
- and burn out
only to be told
“budgets are tight”
and “be grateful you have a job.”
So Gen Z chose differently.
- They don’t romanticize overwork.
- They don’t confuse suffering with ambition.
- They don’t trade health for praise.
They still work hard.
They just refuse to work for nothing.
It’s not laziness.
It’s pattern recognition.
And honestly,
after everything old generation went through…
Can you really blame them?
and suddenly i became the person who takes forever to reply, likes to be alone, will ghost you, doesn’t care about anything, and will not care if we fade away