The question as to whether Nigeria suffers from a shortage of ideas will likely be thrown up yet again, amidst a growing reality of young people spotting problems, sketching out responses, and imagining a country that works better than the one they inherited. The more pressing question is whether the nation is prepared to recognise, equip, and trust these emerging solution-builders. These questions will take centre stage on 20 August, 2026, when former INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, mounts the podium to stir a critical leadership conversation. Known largely for his frank views, the platform presented by a non-governmental organisation in Bauchi State, for Jega to interrogate our national leadership consciousness, raises enthusiasm; if the theme of the event, “Driving Youth Innovation and Alternative Solutions: Pathway to Nation Building”, is anything to go by.

Coming long after a well-deserved break from public engagement, Professor Jega’s intervention is timely. With youth unemployment persisting, inequality widening, trust in public institutions declining, and conventional routes to progress increasingly blocked, Nigeria must broaden its understanding of leadership. Nation-building can no longer remain the exclusive language of government offices, political parties, or formal institutions. It must also be located in classrooms, technology hubs, small businesses, community projects, civic platforms, and the everyday acts through which citizens solve problems around them. A country does not build its future by producing young people who can speak impressively about change but cannot organise, execute, or measure it. Confidence must be accompanied by communication skills. Ambition must be supported by digital competence, civic awareness, entrepreneurial thinking, and project-management discipline. Leadership must be judged not only by intention, but by the quality and durability of the outcomes it produces.

Yet there is an older wisdom that cuts through the noise of programme design and project metrics. The late Ambassador Maitama Sule once observed that the new breed without the old breed would breed greed. He was speaking specifically about politics, in the context of debates that eventually gave rise to the Not-Too-Young-To-Run movement. But the philosophy has since migrated far beyond that terrain. In a world where young minds surge into positions of influence across technology, finance, governance, media, and healthcare, the principle has never been more relevant. Raw energy without guidance loses its way. Ambition without perspective becomes dangerous. The new generation brings fire, fresh thinking, and urgency. The old brings memory, scars from battles fought, and understanding of how systems actually function. Neither is sufficient alone. The Bauchi event’s focus on innovation and alternative solutions, underscored by its charting of a pathway to nation-building, is not a handover but a relay race. The young need the old to avoid repeating avoidable errors; the old need the young to avoid mistaking familiarity for wisdom.

It would be costly to mistake “alternative solutions” as a rejection of government or established institutions. Rather, it invites a broader and more creative national compact. Government remains indispensable, but it cannot solve every problem alone. Businesses, civil society organisations, communities, professional bodies, universities, and young innovators all have roles in developing responses that are faster, more context-sensitive, and participatory. The task is to build an ecosystem where promising ideas can be tested, improved, and connected to resources. Young people need mentors who understand both failure and execution, institutions that listen without exploiting them, opportunities across boundaries, and public systems that reward integrity and competence over visibility. A central proposition behind the work of the conference organisers, the WeCare Centre for Community Awareness and Empowerment Initiative, is the repurposing of sustainable development away from merely assisting young people to drive change, towards equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities to become active drivers of change.

The organisation’s growing traction is inseparable from the vision of its founder, Dr Jamila Mohammed Dahiru, whose experience as former Commissioner for Education in Bauchi State gives the initiative an unusual combination of policy understanding and grassroots perspective. That background matters because education is the foundation upon which employability, civic participation, innovation, social mobility, and responsible leadership are built. A former education commissioner understands that the real test of policy is not elegant language but whether it reaches the out-of-school child, the youth without opportunity, the woman sustaining a livelihood, and the community seeking voice. That public-sector experience also brings appreciation of scale, systems, and accountability. At the community level, however, the most effective interventions recognise the individual behind the statistic. WeCare’s approach combines immediate support with long-term empowerment, humanitarian assistance with skills development, and social awareness with leadership formation, a model that does not treat vulnerability as permanent identity, but as a condition addressable through support, agency, and opportunity.

The case for WeCare is strengthened by its measurable record. The organisation has reintegrated more than 390 out-of-school children into formal education across Bauchi State, providing enrolment support, uniforms, school bags, shoes, and learning materials. These practical interventions restore continuity, dignity, and the possibility of a different life trajectory. WeCare has provided more than N3 million in direct financial assistance to over 200 women and young people for skills acquisition and enterprise expansion. Its humanitarian work has reached more than 300 vulnerable individuals with food and clothing assistance, while over 50 patients have received medical and nutritional support. Other programmes include sponsorship of 50 orphans under the Daura educational programme, digital skills training for 25 Almajiri children, school-fee support for more than 30 students, and distribution of materials to over 200 children.

One of the clearest expressions of Dr Dahiru’s vision is the WeCare Leadership and Impact Mentorship Programme, WLIMP 2026, the flagship ten-week leadership development initiative. The current cohort was drawn from applications received from all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, as well as Ghana, Zambia, and Rwanda. Fifty young people were selected for intensive training in transformational leadership, governance, civic responsibility, communication, employability, digital skills, entrepreneurship, social impact, and project management. This geographical reach suggests that demand for credible leadership development transcends region and class, pointing toward a wider African conversation rooted in local realities while embracing cross-border collaboration. WLIMP’s most important feature may be its Capstone Project, through which participants translate learning into practical solutions; departing from motivational talks and certificates to structured projects, from ambition to competence, from beneficiaries to solution-builders.

This is where the WeCare model carries broader national implication. Leadership development should not be separated from the realities of education, poverty, health, gender, digital inclusion, and civic participation. A young person cannot be prepared to lead while structural barriers are ignored. Nor can a community be empowered through one-off interventions if denied the knowledge and tools to sustain progress. Dr Dahiru’s contribution lies in linking these dimensions. Her experience in education and leadership of a community-focused initiative place her at the intersection of policy, social intervention, and human development, informing a vision of leadership grounded not in personality but in the capacity to expand opportunity and enable others to act. The inaugural WeCare Leadership Conference should be understood as an opportunity to ask difficult questions. What leaders does Nigeria need over the next decade? How can institutions move beyond youth engagement as slogan? What mechanisms connect innovation with finance, mentorship, markets, and policy? How can civic responsibility become lived practice? Professor Jega’s participation is fitting. His career has been associated with institutional integrity, citizenship, democratic participation, and leadership responsibility. In a country where institutional quality is inseparable from the quality of people who lead and sustain them, his voice can broaden the conversation from personal success to national responsibility.

The conference will be most valuable if it does not end with applause. Its true measure will be whether it strengthens a continuing platform for young Nigerians to present solutions, receive serious feedback, form partnerships, and secure implementation pathways. It should encourage policy-makers, development actors, and private-sector leaders to see youth innovation not as public-relations theme, but as strategic national asset. Nigeria’s demographic reality makes this imperative. The young population is often described as a challenge, but it is equally a reservoir of imagination, labour, enterprise, and civic energy. Whether that reservoir becomes a source of renewal or frustration will depend significantly on choices made by today’s institutions. The name WeCare carries an ethical claim: that society must care about the welfare, dignity, and prospects of its people. But the record points to a more demanding interpretation. To care is not only to respond when people are in distress. It is to create conditions where they become capable, confident, and consequential participants in their own communities. That is the promise of the WeCare Leadership Conference and the wider vision associated with Dr Jamila Mohammed Dahiru, a vision beginning with education, recognising the urgency of empowerment, and culminating in leadership that delivers practical results.

The national conversation Nigeria needs is not simply about whether young people are ready to lead. It is about whether the country is ready to invest in the systems, trust, and opportunities that will allow them to do so responsibly. On 20 August, the inaugural conference will place that question before the public. The answer should not be another declaration of hope. It should be a commitment to build the pathways through which hope becomes capability, capability becomes action, and action becomes nation-building.

Sa’id, a Communications Specialist and Public affairs Analyst writes from Abuja