I was using my phone in the toilet when I scrolled and stumbled upon a friend's WhatsApp status post which said; "NIGERIANS CAN NEVER SURVIVE A WORKING NIGERIA". After giving it much thought, I rushed to my drafting board.
The problem and truth about this is that Nigerians and Africans as a whole do not like good things or enjoyment in a general way, true. We want the best for ourselves but what of others. Then I also noticed we Africans have a mentality problem of waiting for a perfect time, imagine having chances to invest in landed properties and business opportunities which are totally life-changing but you choose to pass them away and wait for the right time?! Funny how we spend more than that on consumption, then also we have more of a consumption mentality, we'd rather have fat stomachs than fat wallets and bank accounts, today I decided to leave that category and download and start using Cowrywise. It's good to have a big stomach, but having a fat wallet or both is better.
Further, we have a mentality issue which is deep-rooted and we have to fix that. The first one is that we see our government as the Messiah, to be honest the government is in a way indebted to us, but in the flawed African setting we have to help ourselves. If the United States, China and all other countries decided to rely solely on the government there would not be where they are today. In fact, when the government is no longer seen as the Messiah, it would sit up and politicians will stop giving palliatives and small foodstuffs to buy your votes and start offering real value.
Then the second mentality issue is that we look down on ourselves and see ourselves as victims, should Nigeria become a better place today we would go back to importing basic essentials due to this low confidence mentality and the fact that we Africans don't encourage our own native markets and businesses, but before we go on blaming the governments for not collaborating or creating inter-market opportunities, we ourselves have we helped each other, we'd all rather compete and sell the same things with our neighbors than help them grow.
Finally, we are very lazy and we like instant gratification, that is bad and very true. The laziness shows in how we have made adult stars, fraudsters, kidnappers, ritualists, drug dealers and gamblers every five years! I appreciate the fact that most youth are making it for themselves but they are barely encouraged!!
Lest we fix these issues, Africa and Nigeria will be in an endless wild goose chase!
Hmmmm