12 years ago, my life changed.

I was one of 12 young people selected from 15,000 others by the ex-first lady of Ogun state to embark on a leadership training in the UK under the UPLIFT program.

That program transformed my perspective on public leadership and nation building.

So, I deeply understand the immense personal development and the responsibility attached to them.

I’ve lived through periods of enthusiasm and trust in Nigeria’s public leadership to the now declining public trust in key government institutions.

I remember watching former President Obasanjo’s inauguration ceremony as the first leader in Nigeria's Fourth Republic, following the transition from military to civilian government.

I was very young but I remember asking my dad what democracy meant because people seemed to be happy about it and trusting of it.

Today, people have low trust in government and public institutions as signalled by massive exodus of human capital, frequent social unrest, resistance to taxation, and populist ideologies.

If you are a Nigerian living in Nigeria, chances are you’ve weighed your japa options several times every year.

Late last year, another defining thing happened to me.

I won’t share what it was but it shook me.

It made me rethink everything in my life: purpose, career, impact, relationships.

Around the same time, the development sector was hit with massive cuts in funding.

I’d been working in the sector for 5 years so I understood what that meant. But that’s not the point of this rant.

Everybody knew: with or without aid, development still needs to happen in emerging markets and developing economies.

“How?” was the question.

So, I found myself thinking about public leadership and nation building yet again.

And I applied to several programs to see what I could do about it.

I applied to the European University Institute (EUI)’s school of transnational governance (STG) for the Policy Leaders Fellowship (PLF). Was rejected.

Applied to the Mandela Washington Fellowship. Same result.

Applied to the Lateef Jakande Leadership Academy (LJLA) as well. Got to the final stage but was rejected too.

I got rejected by so many programs. I don’t even remember how many I applied to.

What did Burna Boy say about if you don’t win, there’s no evidence that you tried? Haha.

However, I gained something critical from these applications: a bunch of reflections on what not to do.

Why am I waiting for these programs to tell me what to do?

Why am I expecting these institutions to “get” what I'm trying to do?

Why am I waiting for any of them to “pick me”?

I have nothing against these well-meaning programs, but I am not waiting for any of them to “pick me” anymore.

I am not waiting for a program to tell me what to do anymore.

I am writing this as a letter to myself.

12 years from today, I want to look back and see how far I have come.

Because, tell me, why are so many African nations failing?

Failing their people.

Failing their promise of greatness.

Failing their potential.

The answer is complex and nuanced but one thing is clear: you can’t fix a nation.

That’s the approach most people and “well-meaning” organisations take when trying to chart African nations to a path of prosperity.

They recommend best practices policies and urge our statesmen to adopt them.

They launch intervention programs that tackle superficial issues and symptoms to root problems.

They treat our politicians as if they are ignorant.

And they ignore the politics of existing societal and economic institutions and wonder why things don’t work.

Things don’t work because there’s something inherently wrong with our institutions that make and keep them being extractive for a few and devoid of any sustainable and significant growth enough for any inclusive prosperity of the common man.

And that thing is ideology.

Culture.

Mindset.

The Nigerian dream.

Call it whatever.

The central theme is what the common (wo)man deems possible within the context of their reality.

The stories they believe.

The stories they tell themselves.

The narratives that recur in their everyday lives.

We can’t fix a nation.

We can’t engineer prosperity.

But we can steer people and institutions in the right direction.

We can induce an environment that allows small pockets of “resistance” within established institutions.

We can create “friction" in the existing power structures so that the common (wo)man can begin to see that transformation is possible and within reach.

And that’s all you need for a nation to reach a critical tipping point where political transformation that has the best interest of the people at heart is inevitable.

That small force at a critical juncture in history where enough people believe that prosperity is not a thing that only happens in the United States, United Kingdom, or Europe.

But something that occurs when common people take their future into their hands by demanding better from their leaders and doing better by their neighbours.

Yes, this is political.

But it is not about politics.

It is nation building.

It is culture-shaping with the media.

Africa is one of the largest and fastest growing consumer markets in the world.

We consume massive amounts of media.

The same media that has been used across history to shape untrue narratives.

We are already being sold to by Hollywood and big tech, shaping their own narratives of culture and selling products that fit those narratives.

Why can’t we use that same media to transform our own society?

What’s stopping us from leveraging it to shape a future that we want?

The time is now.

Technology is evolving at a pace we can’t imagine, in ways we can’t imagine.

It is our generation’s responsibility to harness the tools at our disposal to change the course of our future and our children’s future.

I’m about to be a creative in every sense of the word.

Kudos to those already tackling similar nation-building issues. Chisom Ebi. The Afropolitan podcast. David Coleman. Wavinya Makai. Farxiyo Noir. The School of Politics, Policies, and Governance.

PS.

In the book, Why Nations Fail, the authors argue that a political transformation is necessary for any society to be prosperous.

And across history, such a transformation is birthed by a revolution that results in conflict and lots of lives lost.

I don’t subscribe to conflict.

But the book also subtly discusses the power of media in shaping narratives that keep extractive nations in that vicious cycle of scarcity and lack of prosperity.

That same media can be leveraged for the opposite effect.

Every week, this newsletter Development Hacks delivers strategic thinking + doing tools for public leaders, economic policymakers, and system builders working to shape emerging economies from the inside out. If this article challenged your perspective, forward it to someone making decisions at scale.