A strange thing is happening in Nigeria.
A young man spends 20 years climbing the educational ladder.
6 years in primary school.
6 years in secondary school.
4 to 6 years in university.
1 year of NYSC.
By the time he is done, he has invested roughly 6,500 to 7,000 days preparing for life.
Then life arrives and asks a simple question:
“What problem can you solve?”
Silence.
Not because he is unintelligent.
Not because he is lazy.
But because somewhere along the journey, we confused education with certification.
We taught people how to pass exams, not how to create value.
Think about it.
An electrician who never attended university can walk into a building worth N500 million and confidently power every room from the foundation to the penthouse.
A graduate with multiple certificates may stand beside him unable to identify which wire powers the building.
One has credentials.
The other has capability.
The market pays for capability.
That is why reality often delivers a rude mathematical lesson.
If a graduate earns N100,000 monthly, that is N1.2 million annually.
A skilled technician charging N40,000 per job and handling just two jobs weekly earns over N4 million yearly.
Same country.
Different skills.
Different outcomes.
The tragedy is not that one earns more than the other.
The tragedy is that we keep preparing millions of young people for a race that no longer exists.
We celebrate admission lists like victory trophies.
We celebrate graduation photos like guaranteed employment letters.
Then we act surprised when hundreds of applicants compete for one vacancy.
Imagine 1,000 people chasing 10 jobs.
Basic mathematics says 990 people will be disappointed.
No motivational speaker can negotiate with arithmetic.
Yet we continue producing graduates faster than we produce opportunities.
That is like manufacturing keys without building doors.
The painful irony?
The people we once looked down on are increasingly becoming the people we depend on.
When your transformer fails at midnight, you do not call a philosophy graduate.
When your water stops running, you do not search for a political scientist.
When your air conditioner breaks in April heat, theory suddenly becomes less important than technical competence.
The economy has a brutal honesty.
It rewards usefulness more than status.
Nations that understood this long ago built prosperity differently.
They stopped asking only, “How many graduates do we have?”
They started asking, “How many builders, technicians, machinists, coders, welders, mechanics and innovators can we produce?”
There is dignity in intellectual work.
There is dignity in skilled labour.
The mistake is ranking one above the other.
A society that worships certificates while neglecting competence eventually discovers that framed documents cannot build roads, repair machines, wire factories, manufacture products or create wealth.
The future belongs to people who can solve problems.
Whether they learned it in a lecture hall, a workshop, an apprenticeship centre or under a mango tree is secondary.
Because at the end of the day, the market does not award marks.
It awards value.
And value has never asked to see anybody’s certificate before writing the cheque.
I am Abiola Aremu Ogunlade and
May Nigeria win🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬
Terrorists Blessing CEO Ifechukwu Dennis #LongBeach Base to Canton Vhee
🚨🚨 Cristiano Ronaldo's Saudi chef finally revealed his diet:
1. In his diet, he is not allowed any dairy products or sugar, meaning zero sugar completely, and the surprising thing is that Cristiano every morning...
I’m Amarachi, 25. I live in Surulere. I pay ₦450k/year for a room in a 3-bedroom flat.
I share the kitchen, toilet, and fridge with two other girls. One is 23 and does TikTok dances at 2 AM. The other is 27 and her boyfriend visits five days a week.
I’m a product manager earning ₦550,000 monthly. It’s good money at 25.
Salary breakdown:
Rent ₦37.5k/month + NEPA ₦20k + Food ₦100k + Transport ₦25k + Contribution ₦50k + Mum ₦70k = ₦302.5k.
Left with ₦247.5k. I should be able to afford my own place.
But a 1-bedroom in Surulere costs ₦1.2M/year (₦100k/month). I have ₦900k saved and am ₦300k short.
My friends:
Aisha japa’d to Canada. She pays £1,200 for a 1-bed and complains.
Tomi got married at 23, lives in Ikeja, and posts “my husband’s house.”
Chioma is 26, still with roommates, and just got promoted.
My mum calls weekly: “Amarachi, 25 and you’re still sharing a toilet? Your mates are married.”
In March, my 23-year-old roommate’s TikTok friend used my pot without washing it. I fought. The other girl said, “If you don’t like it, pack out.”
I checked my bank: ₦900k. Rent: ₦1.2M. Peace: ₦0.
In May, I moved into a ₦600k/year self-contained apartment in Gbagada, still in Lagos, 25 minutes from Surulere.
New breakdown:
Rent ₦50k/month + NEPA ₦18k + Food ₦150k + Transport ₦20k + Mum’s upkeep ₦80k = ₦318k.
I keep ₦232k/month, save ₦150k monthly, and use the remaining ₦82k for other expenses.
The flat is small with no balcony. But my pot is mine. My toilet is mine. No boyfriends visiting. No 2 AM dances.
Three months later, I posted a video of myself in the room.
Chioma DM’d: “I’m moving out next month. Please send me the agent’s number.”
Tomi commented: “My husband’s house is sweet, but this looks like freedom.”
Aisha: “I’d trade my £1,200 flat for this.”
My mum didn’t mention marriage for two months. She only said, “At least your pot is safe now and you own your toilet.”
I still go to work in Surulere, 25 minutes by bus. But I come home to silence. I come home to me.
At 25 in Lagos, you don’t need Lekki or a husband to be an adult. You just need a door that only your key opens. Everything else is noise.
I didn’t wait until 30 to choose peace. I took it at 25.
A man must build 3 most important pillars of his life;
1. A body that can handle pressure.
2. A mind that doesn’t panic.
3. A skill that creates income.
Fail in one, and everything suffers.
I will never block you for having a different opinion or disagreeing respectfully. But you will be eternally blocked if you choose to demonstrate mental instability and needless toxicity simply because you disagree with my considered view as reduced to writing. You don’t own my thoughts and can’t control them to suit your sentiments. 🪴
@instablog9ja Having a Master’s doesn’t guarantee comfort, it just proves you survived more exams. Life doesn’t care about degrees; it cares about hustle, luck, and who actually turns knowledge into results.