Nigeria’s young people are increasingly looking up to those who flaunt wealth, not those who earn respect through knowledge, skill and honest work, as experts at the Fourth Edition of the ValidViewNetwork Monthly Global Discourse warned on Sunday, September 27, 2026, that the country faces a deepening role-model crisis.
The virtual discourse featured two eminent national thought leaders whose backgrounds brought different but complementary perspectives to the discussion.
Emeritus Professor Michael Abiola Omolewa, OON, a globally respected scholar of educational history and national development, brought decades of academic insight into the relationship between education, national values and the formation of young minds.
Alongside him, Akogun Tola Adeniyi, veteran journalist, cultural commentator and one of Nigeria’s influential public intellectuals, examined the issue from the standpoint of culture, social values and the people Nigerian society chooses to celebrate.
At the event, themed “The Lost Promise of 6-3-3-4: Can Nigeria Still Recover Its Technological Vision?”, ValidViewNetwork reports that the discussants identified a troubling shift in the hierarchy of admiration among Nigerian youths.
Teachers, scientists, scholars and skilled professionals, they suggested, increasingly compete for attention with individuals whose principal visible qualification is wealth, even where the source of that wealth is questionable.
A QUIET SHIFT IN WHOM THE YOUNG ADMIRE
The teacher, scientist and artisan once carried considerable public respect.
Today, the person who displays the most money can command greater attention, regardless of how the money was acquired.
No decree caused the change.
It developed gradually through what society applauds, what it excuses and what it chooses not to question.
Every society creates heroes for its young people. The important question is what those heroes teach.
If the most celebrated person in a neighbourhood is the individual with the most expensive car rather than the teacher, scientist, engineer or skilled worker who spent years building expertise, young people inevitably absorb that hierarchy of values.
THE YAHOO YAHOO EFFECT
The concern becomes particularly visible in the phenomenon popularly known as “Yahoo Yahoo”.
Consider the young man who abandons school or legitimate work for internet fraud. Within months, he may acquire a car, designer clothes and an extravagant lifestyle.
His neighbourhood may not ask where the money came from.
It may celebrate him.
Younger boys watching from the sidelines see the car before they see the crime. They see the clothes before they understand the consequences. They see the social attention before they consider the victims.
The graduate walking to a modest job can consequently appear to have lost, while the fraudster in the new car appears to have won.
Even when arrests eventually occur, the social damage may already have been done because admiration came first.
The discussants did not identify specific individuals. They described a broader pattern in which wealth acquired through questionable means can be treated as evidence of success rather than a reason for scrutiny.
PRAISE WITHOUT QUESTIONS
The crisis is not confined to the streets.
It also appears in respectable social settings.
At owambes, money is sprayed on the man or woman of means while a retired headmaster may sit unnoticed.
In many communities, the front seat, chieftaincy title and microphone go to the person with money, while fewer people ask where that money came from.
A politician’s sudden wealth can generate praise and thank-you receptions rather than questions about its source.
Each of these moments communicates something to the child watching.
The source of wealth does not necessarily matter.
The size of the wealth does.
The discussants’ concern is that such repeated social signals can undermine the moral and educational values that Nigeria expects its young people to uphold.
HARD WORK MADE TO LOOK FOOLISH
A young Nigerian who studies patiently, learns a trade or builds a legitimate business over several years may encounter a very different social message.
He may be told he is wasting time.
She may be asked why she is still struggling after years of education.
A young entrepreneur may constantly be compared with someone whose sudden prosperity has never been explained.
Parents can also become part of this pressure when they compare their children with neighbours who appear to be “doing well”, without asking what lies behind the display.
According to the submissions at the discourse, this inversion sits at the heart of the role-model crisis.
Honest effort begins to look foolish.
Shortcuts begin to look like intelligence.
Integrity begins to look like a disadvantage.
A nation cannot ask its young people to value honesty while directing its loudest applause towards people whose wealth raises serious questions.
WHEN THE PROFESSOR CANNOT AFFORD THE DIGNITY HIS TITLE SUGGESTS
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Chief Tola Adeniyi also lamented the declining social and economic status of intellectuals, making the striking observation that a professor can reach a point where even buying a cup of coffee becomes financially difficult.
The point was not literally about coffee.
It was about what society communicates when someone who has spent decades acquiring knowledge, researching, teaching and producing intellectual value struggles to enjoy the ordinary economic dignity associated with professional achievement.
The concern finds a related illustration in a recent intervention by Professor Abdelghaffar Amoka Abdelmalik of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
In his opinion piece, “Nigerian University Lecturers and the Self-Normalisation of Poverty,” Abdelmalik recounted an experience as an external examiner that he presented as an illustration of the changing economic realities confronting Nigerian academics.
He said he travelled to another university to examine postgraduate students and was confronted with the inadequacy of the official payment arrangements.
According to his account, he travelled approximately 87 kilometres to the institution. He said that, after the examination, the mileage claim was calculated at ₦40 per kilometre, producing a payment of about ₦2,960 for the journey.
Abdelmalik said the experience became more striking when considered against the time and intellectual responsibility involved in examining postgraduate work.
His account was not simply a complaint about ₦2,960.
He used the episode to argue that Nigerian academics can gradually become accustomed to inadequate compensation, until conditions that would once have been considered unacceptable begin to appear normal.
That argument adds context to Adeniyi’s concern about the diminished economic position of the intellectual class.
It also brings the role-model question into sharper focus.
If a young Nigerian sees a professor struggling financially despite years of education and professional service, while someone displaying unexplained wealth receives public admiration, the young person may begin to question the value of choosing the longer path of education and expertise.
THE GLORIFICATION OF WEALTH, NOT WEALTH ITSELF
The discourse drew an important distinction between wealth and the glorification of wealth.
Earning money honestly is not the problem.
Building a successful company is not the problem.
Becoming prosperous through innovation, professional excellence, farming, manufacturing, technology or entrepreneurship is not the problem.
The concern is what happens when society celebrates the display of wealth without interrogating its source.
ValidViewNetwork gathered that the discussants see this distinction as central to the role-model crisis.
When society honours the loot rather than the labour, it gives young people a template.
They do not have to be instructed to steal.
They only need to see who receives the applause.
THE LOST PROMISE OF 6-3-3-4
The concern connects directly to the theme of the Fourth Monthly Global Discourse.
The 6-3-3-4 educational philosophy was intended to give Nigerian education a strong practical and technical orientation, alongside academic development.
The promise was not simply to produce certificate holders.
It was to produce young Nigerians equipped with knowledge, practical skills and the capacity to contribute meaningfully to national development.
The role-model crisis therefore threatens the educational project itself.
A country cannot build a technological culture while its young people are taught, consciously or unconsciously, that visible wealth matters more than knowledge and productive skill.
The question is not only whether Nigeria can recover the structure of 6-3-3-4.
It is whether it can recover the values that made education, technical competence and productive work worth pursuing.
A NATIONWIDE REORIENTATION
The combined contributions of Omolewa and Adeniyi point towards a need for nationwide reorientation.
The country must deliberately restore genuine achievement to public visibility.
Teachers.
Scientists.
Researchers.
Engineers.
Skilled tradespeople.
Innovators.
Farmers.
Doctors.
Entrepreneurs who create value.
Public servants who demonstrate integrity.
These people must not become invisible simply because they do not make the loudest displays of wealth.
The objective is not to tell Nigerian youths that wealth is bad.
It is to teach them that how wealth is acquired matters.
A simple question should become culturally acceptable again:
“How did you make it?”
The answer should matter as much as the amount.
A QUESTION NIGERIA MUST ANSWER
The young do not choose the country’s role models entirely by themselves.
Adults choose them too, through what they reward, what they excuse, what they celebrate and what they cheer.
The central question of Nigeria’s role-model crisis is therefore simple.
When a child looks for someone to become, whom will Nigeria put in front of that child?
The answer will shape more than individual ambitions.
It will shape the values, aspirations and choices of the next generation.
ABOUT THE MONTHLY GLOBAL DISCOURSE
The discourse is organised by ValidViewNetwork Limited, founded by Dr Kayode Ogunjobi FHEA, FFAN, and operating across Consultancy, Media and Advocacy, with emphasis on environmental and educational consultancy, research, communication, publishing, public enlightenment and policy engagement.
Mr Lanre Ogundipe, former President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists and African Union of Journalists, chairs the organisation’s Advisory Council.
The Monthly Global Discourse holds every last Sunday of the month from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM WAT.
The Fifth Edition comes up on Sunday, October 25, 2026, with educators, policymakers, young people and members of the public encouraged to participate.
ValidViewNetwork expresses appreciation to all participants and remains committed to evidence-based civic engagement, mindset renewal and national development.