By Hope O’Rukevbe EGHAGHA

A high percentage of the youths of this generation want to live life in the fast lane. Life in the fast lane means moving too fast, constant hustle, deadlines, and speed without direction. There is the quick hook, the feeling that you are winning until you realize that you have just been running. ‘Speed without direction is just a faster way to crash.

The fast lane life is evident in their language. Their lifestyle. Their codes. Their morality. Ethical conduct. Their proclaimed targets are simply ridiculous. A young man who is in secondary school says he wants to make his first one million naira before he gets to Age 20! A young man works in a bank and wants to be a billionaire before Age 30! His role models are the topnotch bankers in the country, men who got rich in the dark and tried hard to clean up their act. Some names are readily and flippantly mentioned. A young man says ‘I just want to be a billionaire even if it means pushing the hard stuff (hard drugs) to raise capital. For such guys, it’s not enough to be wealthy. You must also be seen to be wealthy. The ‘Hushpuppy’ type of popularity. Expensive cars. That’s what life is about. Expensive hotels. Luxurious living. Materialism.

Life with the speed of a jet engine is fun, can be fun. With that mindset, you take all kinds of risks. Dangerous risks. Not so dangerous. There are no boundaries. No restrictions. You want to arrive at your destination even before taking off. Some take-off and burn out early. Some don’t even takeoff at all. They crash while testing their equipment. With this spirit, some don’t want to start a regular job. This came to the fore recently when some youths were asked to respond to an advert for civil service jobs. ‘How much is the salary? Was the reply of one of them. A salary that will be exhausted within one week? They forget that some of their parents put them through school working as civil servants. Yet, there are millions more aching for a regular job until they make the big break!

The young men who kidnapped me in 2012 asked me how much I paid my police orderly monthly. I said thirty thousand naira. They said its not up to the amount they spend at the club per night. These are young men with no definite job. Life in the fast lane without a credible source of income is a recipe for future regrets. These days the kidnapping industry has run into trillions. And it becomes attractive to the simpleminded.

We who have spent some time on earth know that it is in the spirit of youth to want to do things quickly. I remember when we thought the elders were too slow in carrying out certain actions. Church. Work place. Family. Community. The rise of community youth bodies is traceable to this spirit. Challenge the elders. Let the youths run the show. So, youths wanting to do things quickly is not a new culture.

In other words, there is a way the life of young people has always been defined by doing things faster. Quicker. They lack the patience and knowledge that come with age. But with the arrival of the spirit of AI, speed has been redefined. Social media has made that lifestyle very attractive. Quick riches. Get rich quickly or die while trying.

The yahoo yahoo boys and yahoo plus culture started from here. When their counterparts in the civilized world or their counterparts in Nigeria are busy using the internet to create contents, they head for a Babalawo who will concoct charms for them to make their mugu victim fall prey to their evil machinations.

In some cases, they are asked to sacrifice something dear to them. Some lure fun-loving girls to a secret place and murder them for rituals. Their sensitive body parts are chopped off and taken to a fetish man. Last year, a 19year-old man was found with the head of a human being – the head of his girlfriend. It was reported two weeks ago that when EFCC officials arrived in Ado Ekiti to swoop on the bad boys, they all fled town. Hotel owners started complaining about dwindling patronage. Their mothers also called for caution. Another dimension on the fast-lane riches is fraud. Having understood the financial set up of where they work, they hack into it and make away with millions.

Sadly, the prevailing ethos in the country promotes life in the fast lane. Overnight billionaires are celebrated in the mosque, church, and traditionally. It’s so bad now that we have ‘traditional rulers’ who are fraudsters. Or fraudsters who were rewarded with a chieftaincy title. As we speak there is a traditional ruler from the southwest who is serving jail term in the US. How? Oba Joseph Oloyede the Apetu of Ipetumodu in Osun State was sentenced to fifty-six months in prison on August 26 2025 COVID-19 loan fraud. The act of fraud is a deep contradiction with the values of the traditional system. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recently fired a good number of its staff for corruption. Ask Chaucer asks: if gold rust, what would iron do?

Because of what the youths see their elders do, they also want to join the train of filthy lucre. There is no amount of preaching that can stop life in the fast lane if the leaders continue to give or promote the false notion that getting rich and quickly in the dark is the way to go. It is this scenario that drove the Ghanian writer Ayi Kwei Armah to write the novel The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. When will the beautiful ones be born in Nigeria?