Ric Hassani recently kicked off a firestorm on social media with bold claims about the younger generation and work. In a post on X on Sunday, August 2, Hassani disclosed his struggles to find good hands to manage his business ventures. Most interestingly, he suggested that “nobody wants to work anymore.” According to the singer, everyone in today’s market wants to be on their own: an influencer, their own boss.

Nobody wants to work anymore. For a while I have been looking for a GM and Sales & Marketing Executive for one of my business brands we’ve been trying to staff, and it has been such a hassle finding people to employ, and also employable people, because these are two different…

— Ric Hassani (@RicHassani) August 2, 2026

But that is not quite the claim it looks like. Young Nigerians are not necessarily rejecting work. Influencing, freelancing, running a small business are work, albeit often harder and less secure than a 9-to-5. What they are rejecting is a specific bargain: steady but modest pay, years of “paying your dues,” loyalty to a company in exchange for slow, promised growth. That bargain used to make sense. Increasingly, it doesn’t and the interesting part is that Nigeria’s own institutions are the ones undermining it.

Consider entrepreneurship, which has been sold as the answer for several years now. In a country with a persistent unemployment crisis (nearly half of Nigerian households experienced job losses, business closures or difficulties finding employment in the past year, according to a new report by SBM Intelligence), many young Nigerians have been told that the smoothest way to success is creating their own job. Polytechnics and universities run courses dedicated to teaching entrepreneurship, regardless of their inadequacies — theory slop, with no serious practical knowledge in most cases. Then you move on to the National Youth Service Corps’ (NYSC) three-week orientation camp, where you choose a practical skill to learn from an array of options, including driving, which they teach you without a car. 

The message, from the government’s perspective, is that you really are on your own once you’re out of school: they cannot guarantee you gainful employment. But Hassani blames the Devil for convincing everyone that they can “do it on their own.” It’s the reliable, convenient fallback for the typical Nigerian: when all goes wrong, blame the Devil. The Devil made Nigeria’s attorney-general and chief law enforcement officer accumulate 48 ill-gotten properties worth ₦180.4 billion while in office. The Devil made a sitting senator, just days ago, tell his supporters to kill members of the opposition party. It’s always the big, bad Devil.

But in the case of young Nigerians increasingly choosing to go it alone, it is wrong and unfair to blame the usual suspect, because this has almost nothing to do with him. It has everything to do with the government ceaselessly telling young graduates to create jobs for themselves, lecturers warning their students that the job market has nothing positive waiting for them, and motivational speakers telling whoever cares to listen that they cannot live their dream life on a salary. For example, only a year ago, August 4, 2026, the Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, was telling younger Nigerians that they “should be creating jobs,” not seeking them. And only a few months ago, in March 2026, the Ministry of Education launched the Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Business Incubation Certification (EIBIC) Programme designed to “equip Nigerian students with entrepreneurial skills and the capacity to build sustainable enterprises before graduation.” 

What's the salary range? https://t.co/Cao8OsR7AV

— LASE 🌆 (@TeePee_Dg) August 2, 2026

And here’s the part that actually breaks the bargain: even when young Nigerians take the traditional route, it often doesn’t pay off. Have you seen a job opening alert lately? The “competitive salary” advertised is usually a depressing sum. In a country where the cost of living is out of control, where persistent inflation eats up stagnant income, the old promise — trade your 20s and 30s for stability and slow growth — assumes an employer who can actually deliver stability. According to recent data by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), inflation erased ₦2.79 trillion from the real value of workers’ earnings in one year, making them poorer and wiping out gains from higher pay. So, when pay doesn’t track inflation, and “growing with the company” doesn’t translate to real mobility, walking away from that deal isn’t laziness. It’s a rational read of a contract that’s already broken. It’s 2026, and the internet offers plenty of opportunities to earn a decent income. So of course everyone wants to be an influencer: it feels like being in control of your own destiny, whether or not it ends up working out.

Hassani is right that “business is not easy to do.” He’s also probably on the money that everyone today is “offended” at everything, with no appetite for mentorship or guidance. But those are entirely different conversations; worth having, but not at the expense of the victims of a situation they did not create.

If “nobody wants to work anymore,” despite there being “honour in working in a company, growing with and in it,” it’s not because they are lazy or “too sensitive” to be corrected. It is because the traditional employment bargain no longer holds up its end. Not the Devil, the deal itself. And once you notice a deal is bad, walking away isn’t a character flaw. It’s just good sense.