Subject: “When Did Akara Become a National Economic Plan? A Nation Asking for Opportunity Should Not Be Offered Survival as a Dream.”
By Solomon Okoduwa
Executive Director, Initiative For Youth Awareness on Migration, Immigration, Development and Reintegration [IYAMIDR Nigeria]
Benin City, Edo State | Sunday June 28, 2026
Your Excellency, Mama Nigeria,
I write to you today as a son of this land, as a stakeholder in her future, and as someone who meets hundreds of Nigerian youth every month who are tired of being told to “manage.”
I read your recent remarks with a heavy heart. I do not doubt your intention. You spoke of resilience, of self-reliance, of the _hustle_ that has kept many Nigerian families alive. For that, we thank you. Our mothers who fry _akara_ by 4am, our fathers who stitch shoes by roadside booths, are the real heroes of our economy. That is our culture of survival.
But Mama, survival is not a development agenda.
1. The Context You May Not Be Seeing From the Villa
At IYAMIDR Nigeria, we work at the intersection of youth, migration, and livelihoods across the South-South and beyond. The faces we see are not lazy. They are:
1. The Graduate: A 26-year-old with a 2:1 in Electrical Engineering from UNIBEN, who has written JAMB for his younger siblings, but has been “hustling” for 4 years because NYSC ended into unemployment.
2. The Skilled Artisan: A welder trained under NDE in Benin, who cannot rent a shop because a single year’s rent is now ₦600,000+, and no bank will give him a loan without land documents he doesn’t own.
3. The Young Mother: In Ekpoma Market, who sells _akara_ and _puff-puff_, but now buys beans at ₦2,400 per mudu, oil at ₦3,000 per litre, and still has to pay for her child’s WAEC.
When we reduce their entire ambition to “learn a trade and fry _akara_,” we tell 60% of our population under 25 that their degrees, skills, and dreams are worthless. That is how hope becomes migration. That is why our best brains are choosing “Japa” over “Stay and Fry.”
2. Dignity is Not a Substitute for Design
Yes, _akara_ built some families. But no nation was ever built on street food alone.
China did not become an economic power by telling graduates to sell noodles. India did not build its IT sector by telling engineers to be content with roadside repair. They created ecosystems: funding, factories, tech parks, export policies.
Nigeria is blessed with beans, cassava, gas, sunlight, and the most creative youth on earth. What we lack is the structure to convert that into wealth.
Your Excellency, Nigeria does not have a survival deficit. We have an opportunity deficit. A deficit of capital, of infrastructure, of predictable policy, and of jobs that pay a living wage.
3. From Survival Tips to Structural Solutions: 3 Things We Are Begging For*
If we must speak of _akara_, then let us industrialize it. Let us dream bigger for it.
1. Capital Without Godfathers : Create a ₦500 Billion “Youth Enterprise Fund” with single-digit interest, no collateral, and LGA-level access. Not grants for 100 people on TV, but loans for 5 million people at their doorstep.
2. Industries, Not Just Ideas : Fund agro-processing hubs in every senatorial zone. Let that _akara bean_ from Edo farmlands become packaged flour, frozen patties, and export products with “Made in Nigeria” on them. Let our creatives have studios, our coders have tech parks, our welders have clusters with power.
3. Dignified Work as a Right : Tie every government intervention to job creation with pensions, health insurance, and wages that can rent a room, feed a family, and save something. A job should not leave a Nigerian poorer than _akara_ money.
4. A Mother’s Duty
Mama, you often say you are a mother to all. A mother does not tell her child who is hungry to “manage garri” when the barn is full. She first opens the barn. Then she puts a hoe in the child’s hand and says, “Let us farm so the barn never empties again.”
That is all we are asking. Open the barn, Your Excellency.
We at IYAMIDR Nigeria are not here to fight. We are here to build. We have youth networks in all 36 states + FCT. We are ready to sit on the table with the Office of the First Lady, with the Renewed Hope Agenda team, to co-design programs that move us from “coping” to “competing.”
Let us build a Nigeria where _akara_ is a business of choice, culture, or export — not the ceiling of ambition for a first-class graduate.
We love Nigeria too much to dream small for her.
With respect, urgency, and hope,
Solomon Okoduwa
Executive Director
Initiative For Youth Awareness on Migration, Immigration, Development and Reintegration [IYAMIDR Nigeria]
Benin City, Edo State | June 28, 2026