21/05/2026
Congrats on my POP 🎓
POP day should feel like pure joy, but job scarcity can steal some of that light.
THE BITTER-SWEET TASTE OF MY POP
Today I wore my NYSC khaki for the last time.
Today I collected my certificate.
Today I “passed out (POP).”
And yet, I cannot lie, my chest is heavy.
How do you celebrate a finish line when the road ahead is fog? How do you dance when the music of “what's next?” is stuck on loop in your head?
For 12 months we served. We taught in classrooms with no chalk. We treated patients with no gloves. We built, we farmed, we gave. We wore “under the sun or in the rain” like a badge of honor. We believed this was the bridge between school and purpose.
But today, as I fold this uniform, I’m staring at a bridge that leads to a cliff.
Because the truth is brutal: Nigeria is raising graduates faster than it’s raising jobs. We leave schools and Nysc with certificates, skills, and hope. We enter a labor market that greets us with “we’re not hiring,” "10 years experience required,” and “submit your CV and pray.”
So yes, I am a graduate. Yes, I am now an x-corps member. But I am also now a member of the most educated, most skilled, most unemployed generation this country has seen.
This is not to dim my POP. I am proud. My mother is proud. Since 2009 when Dad passed, she’s been both parents, and today is her win too. But pride and panic are now roommates in my heart.
To every young graduate popping today: We are not lazy. We are not entitled. We are simply awake to a system that promised us “go to school, get a job” and then moved the goalpost.
I still have hope. But hope without jobs is just a beautiful lie we tell ourselves to sleep at night.
So as I take off this khaki, I’m not just asking “what’s next for me?”
I’m asking “what’s next for us?”
Because a country that cannot employ its youth is a country renting its future.
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