We honour the memory of General Shehu Musa Yar’adua not with ritual praise, but with an honest reckoning. For to truly love Shehu, one must understand the principle of the pendulum: history does not stand still. Leadership must swing forward. And every generation must accept the moral truth of succession.
Today, as we listen to reflections about legacy, sacrifice, and national promise, we must also confront the sober reality: the Nigeria we inherited is more fractured, more uncertain, and more burdened than the Nigeria you promised to build. The dream was noble but its custodians faltered. A generation that once championed courage allowed selfishness, complacency, and political entitlement to seize the very institutions meant to protect the people.
A Dream Mishandled
Yes, General Yar’adua believed in justice, unity, and generational responsibility. But reverence for his ideals must not blind us to the truth:
the baton meant to be passed forward was held too long clutched, guarded, politicized and in that hesitation, our nation’s fractures deepened.
The younger generation faces the consequences every day:
• unemployment that crushes potential,
• insecurity that stifles hope,
• and a political culture that confuses longevity with wisdom, and seniority with service.
The union we inherited is not the union he imagined. And we say this not out of disrespect, but out of duty. Out of clarity. Out of love for the same nation Shehu bled for.
The Pendulum Has Swung
If Shehu believed leadership was a relay, then the truth is simple:
the race cannot move forward if the runners ahead refuse to release the baton.
Our elders fought their battles we acknowledge that. But now, our generation faces a reality they did not prepare us for. The dream was not supposed to be a museum piece polished at anniversaries; it was meant to be a living project, renewed by those who inherited it. Yet we inherited an unfinished and, too often, mismanaged structure.
We stand here not to condemn but to declare:
the time for renewal has come. The pendulum has swung. The baton must pass not later, not someday, not in theory but now.
We Are Not the Future We Are the Present
The youth of Nigeria are no longer “emerging.”
We are here. We are many. And we are ready.
We carry the creativity, the resilience, the anger, the hope, and the discipline demanded by the next chapter of Nigeria’s journey. We do not seek permission to dream; we seek responsibility to build.
Our generation is not perfect but no generation ever is. What defines a new era is not perfection, but courage: the courage to do differently, to do better, to refuse the cycles that held us hostage.
Honouring Shehu by Acting, Not Waiting
If truly we are to honour Shehu Musa Yar’adua, let it be not in speeches that sanctify memory while ignoring reality.
Let it be in the courage to complete the relay he envisioned a relay that demands renewal, transition, and succession.
Because to love Shehu is to embrace the principle he lived by: that leadership is temporary, service is generational, and every dream must one day change hands.
And so we say, with respect but with conviction:
Let the baton pass.
Let the pendulum complete its swing.
Let this generation take the lead not in the distant horizon, but now.
For the union we hope to become cannot be built by those who presided over its fragmentation. It must be built by those who must live with the consequences and who still dare to believe in its promise.
May Shehu Musa Yaradua continue to rest in peace.
Otunba Segun Showunmi
The Alternative.
