The problem with Nigeria is not Nigeria but Nigerians. It’s a defining problem that affects everything, our mentality and values. Who we are as a people has changed from a morally conscious people to a people who are after what they can plunder, it’s from Nigerians leading in the Nigerian armed forces, including the police; it’s from Nigerians in political leadership, religious leadership, traditional leadership and other stratum of society. Everything, amoral, immoral in a Nigerian is raised from home, without a better family we cannot have a better society and a better country.
Most Nigerian homes are dens of immoral recklessness. Promiscuity and prostitution is encouraged and tolerated. We seem to be thieves and rogues but when caught we defend the thief because he/she belongs to us, citing tribal and other considerations, but when not caught and successful we celebrate the person, with garlands and more recognitions to encourage others.
We hardly celebrate moral characters of men and women who go through due process and adherence to principles to excel. Some reality shows on television depicts who we are; from moral to immoral and amoral; how can a society encourage wrong values and still be standing on its feet?
We celebrate youths who openly win awards for their promiscuity and immorality but nothing in their heads, while we fail to acknowledge our young brains who are not only morally sound but won both local and international laurels in academics and excelled in educational pursuit. Nigeria is bad because, Nigerians are bad and can only be good if Nigerians decide to become better citizens. It is sad that we blame political leaders for every woe befalling us but we forget that the same Nigerians who were brought up in unstable and undisciplined homes are the same Nigerians in the armed forces, police force, immigration, customs and others sister agencies.
It’s the same immoral Nigerians raised in homes either by single parents or absent parents who are in every cadre of institutions as political leaders,. Same Nigerian girls who use sex as source of income that are employed in some critical institutions also believe they can use sex as tool for promotion, whereever they are employed. So, when we blame leadership, let us look at our individual homes as a collective society to see the reflection in the rot that is consuming us.
Righteousness exalts a nation and we are gradually graduating towards an era where a wrong does not exist as long as it satisfies our personal agreed. Today we cannot raise incorruptible or moral leaders because they are products of dysfunctional homes.
Criminality in Nigeria is rewarding, we adore and worship wealth and this is what drives our mentality. We never associate with good ideals and even as a government we don’t support good ideals. We only pay lip services to any good initiative. We have the very best of brains to run and man our institutions but we prefer mediocrity to excellence.
All the criminal activities from kidnapping to banditry and others is as a result of collective bad upbringing and values from our various homes. The Nigerian elite is a definition of those who wheather through crook. Providence or hard work has escaped poverty and living among the upper class. There are there in every stratum of society but they are the problem of the neglectful masses.
The elites are there in the political class, in the Nigerian armed forces, in the business sector, in the civil and public service and in various communities. They are everywhere and they are the cartels in oil theft and insecurity in the Niger Delta and there are others promoting banditry, cow hustling, religious fanatics in parts of Nigeria. Their greed and excesses is what has led to many children going out of school because of poverty and the near absence of non-functional health institutions among others.
They contribute to poverty, low life expectancy, corruption in the education, health institutions and governance, corruption is the second denominator that enables the impossibility in Nigeria’s economic and financial unconventional tales. We always complain about leadership but it is a reflection of who we are as a society, as we cannot give what we don’t have. What happens if presented with an opportunity to elect leaders in communities or even in trade union leadership is no longer shocking because it’s a reflection of governed us; greed, avarice, self-interest and corruption.
