Opinion: The Generation That Ate Its Successors

By Comrade Usman Abdulkadir Taleeki 

“True leaders do not create followers; they create more leaders. The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there. A generation that hoards power, wisdom, and opportunity instead of spreading them prepares its own extinction.”

— John W. Gardner

In my column this week, I want to explore an unpleasant culture that now cuts across all sectors of the Nigerian public sphere, from politics to journalism, academia to activism, and every space where influence and reputation matter. We now live in an age where many of those who should be grooming the next generation see upcoming talents as threats, not as young minds to nurture and help grow into better versions of themselves. That is why I titled this week’s column The Generation That Ate Its Successors.

Sycophancy is something I despise, and anyone who knows me well can testify to that. But I have always believed that reaching out to those who have made it to the top, seeking their guidance, learning from their mistakes, and drawing inspiration from their journeys is a key ingredient for national growth. Whenever I see people who have done well in their fields, I try to get closer, not to flatter them, but to seek direction. Some open their doors with grace, many shun such efforts, and a few try to use you for their convenience. Yet that is not why one seeks mentorship. True guidance is not about control or exploitation; it is about helping others find their own light.

But let me not mesmerize you with personal experiences. Let’s get to the heart of it. I am a lover of reading, especially the autobiographies of our leaders, both political and intellectual. Each time I read how they were helped, guided, and given opportunities in their youth, I wonder why they no longer do the same for those coming after them. Many of today’s “big names” were once young people who were mentored, funded, and encouraged by people who believed in their potential. They were given access, introduced to platforms, and trusted with responsibilities far beyond their years. That is how leadership reproduces itself.

But now, Nigeria has become a country where every generation wants to be the alpha and omega of success. The old block the young, the established suppress the emerging, and the privileged fear being outshined. We have become a people allergic to succession, not only in politics but also in knowledge, influence, and creativity. I once wrote in a previous column that the political industry is the only viable ministry in Nigeria, and I meant it. We have industries of power and wealth but no industry of mentorship. There is no structured culture that grooms successors. Instead, we have perfected the art of gatekeeping and recycling old names.

In the First Republic, most of Nigeria’s young ministers and parliamentarians were in their twenties and thirties. The Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, was barely in his forties when he became Premier of Northern Nigeria, and many of his lieutenants were in their early thirties. Chief Obafemi Awolowo trusted youths with administrative roles; Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe had journalists half his age editing his newspapers. They all understood that leadership was not about monopoly but continuity.

Today, that legacy is dead. What we now have is a generation of insecure elders and prematurely entitled youths. The elders do not want to step aside, and the youths do not want to learn patience, process, or responsibility. It is a perfect circle of suspicion, one side hoarding relevance, the other side craving recognition without readiness.

In the public service, professors who were once beneficiaries of scholarships and global exposure now deliberately frustrate younger colleagues from rising. In journalism, editors who were once trained by patient mentors now guard the newsroom like private kingdoms. In activism, some of yesterday’s radicals have become today’s career opportunists, hoarding donor attention and recycling slogans while silencing younger voices. In politics, the worst example of all, many so-called godfathers now act like colonizers of opportunity, grooming only those who serve their egos, not the people’s interests.

This culture of suppression has killed innovation and ambition in the land. We now produce more followers than leaders, more praise-singers than thinkers. The same people who complain about Nigeria’s decline are the ones who close the door on new minds. They forget that every generation has an expiration date, and the only way to live beyond one’s time is through the people one has prepared to take over.

Our ancestors understood succession better than us. In traditional African societies, every elder was a teacher. Every leader was expected to raise apprentices. Blacksmiths trained younger blacksmiths. Hunters taught the secrets of the forest. Even the griots and poets were not selfish with their verses. But the modern Nigerian elite seems cursed with the fear of replacement. They think grooming another is equivalent to digging their own grave. So they prefer to rule alone in politics, in academia, in religion, in culture, and when they die, their work dies with them.

This tragedy is most visible in northern Nigeria, where the mentorship gap is both deep and dangerous. Our elders like to complain that the youths are not ready for leadership, but they forget that readiness is not a natural gift; it is cultivated. You cannot expect a generation to lead when you have never shown them how to lead. That is why, in the same column where I called politics our only viable ministry, I argued that we lack a mentorship industry. We do not have a deliberate ecosystem that grooms thinkers, activists, or technocrats. Everything revolves around access to a godfather, not access to knowledge.

This explains why the average young Nigerian now thinks in transactional terms. He does not look up to those before him for inspiration but for opportunity. He sees mentorship not as guidance but as patronage. The result is a system of opportunism disguised as loyalty, and flattery mistaken for growth.

When a young journalist writes well, an older one feels threatened. When a young academic publishes, his supervisor becomes insecure. When a new voice emerges in civic discourse, established figures suddenly go quiet or conspire to ignore them. This small-mindedness is eating away at our intellectual and moral capital. The effect is cumulative; it kills innovation, weakens institutions, and turns our society into an echo chamber of recycled mediocrity.

Meanwhile, other nations understand that mentoring the young is a form of national investment. In the United States, the average age of a tech CEO is under forty. In Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew prepared successors long before retirement. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela mentored a whole generation of young leaders and activists before he left the stage. But in Nigeria, mentorship has become a ceremonial word, invoked at conferences and ignored in real life.

We love to say youths are the leaders of tomorrow, but we do everything possible to ensure that tomorrow never comes. The most frightening part is that even some young people who rise now imitate the same exclusionary behavior of their predecessors. Give a thirty-year-old a small position, and he begins to behave like the elders he once condemned. We have unconsciously created a cycle of insecurity and smallness.

Perhaps this explains our national stagnation. A country that eats its successors is bound to die of hunger, hunger for ideas, for courage, for creativity. Leadership is like fire: if you do not pass it on, it dies out. Those who think hoarding it guarantees immortality will soon discover that the graveyard is full of indispensable people.

It is time we build what I call a mentorship economy. It begins with humility, the humility to teach, to listen, and to trust. We need institutions that deliberately pair experience with energy, wisdom with curiosity. Every elder should ask: who am I grooming to continue my work? Every young person should ask: who am I learning from without envy?

The generation that ate its successors still has a chance to repent. They can use the power of their twilight years to lift others. They can turn their accumulated wisdom into a curriculum for national renewal. But if they continue to hoard, they will not only perish with their relevance but also erase their legacy.

As John Gardner reminded us, greatness is not something we implant in others; it already exists, leadership merely draws it out. Nigeria’s crisis is not just political or economic; it is moral. We have lost the moral instinct to reproduce excellence. Until we regain that, we will remain a country where every rising generation must begin from zero, building again what should have been inherited.

No nation rises where every elder wants to remain the youngest in the room. No civilization endures where knowledge and power are kept as inheritance instead of responsibility. The generation that ate its successors will soon discover that its hunger was self-cannibalism, for in killing tomorrow, it has only starved today.