Why Is Nigeria Condemned by Our Own Actions

Why Is Nigeria Condemned by Our Own Actions?

For a country so illustrious in the world for its people; who participate in all spheres of human endeavor and excel at almost anything in this world, it is unfathomable why we have failed to move Nigeria forward by any measure. Ours is a nation that has failed in all aspects of nationhood. But we perpetually complain and fail to take action as citizens. Recently, we were called a ‘docile lot’ who have failed in our collective citizenship responsibility to demand equity in the economic, political and social equilibrium of Nigeria. We have not fared better as individuals either.

To many, our leaders are to blame for all our ills, and to deny such claims and say ‘that is not true’ will be an unforgivable understatement. But (and this is a big but), all of us are an undisciplined lot who do not deserve good leadership until and unless we can somehow reform our individual selves. Any people who behave as if they have the right to do anything they want with impunity, must admit and accept that, they are not worthy of a truly reformed and decent leadership. You may disagree but let me try and share a snapshot of today’s Nigerian for you!

Actually it is very hard to pick one single most egregious crime we commit daily, but for me I encounter true Nigerians when I am in the car driving. When NIGERIANS drive, they demonstrate their idiocy, their illiteracy, their incredible ‘I am better than you’ mentality, their false VIP status, and many other traits too numerous to list. It really does not matter how intelligent or educated a Nigerian is. Once we are behind the wheel, we become a bunch of idiots who cannot think or act rationally. If you are in doubt, come see us at a four-way intersection that has a failed traffic signal or an absent traffic warder. Everyone sitting alone in his car knows that we cannot all cross the intersection at the same time, but somehow a Nigerian believe that if he/she just keep trying to bulldoze his way through other vehicles on the road (and I mean literally bulldoze), someday every car on the road will vanish into thin air and leave his/her one car alone on the road. The doctrine of Just stay in line and wait for your turn does not exist on our roads. Why else have we failed to figure out the simple laws of traffic by now? May be it is a direct consequence of our lack of discipline.

A Nigerian drives into traffic without looking. He turns right from anywhere on the road but the right side. Same for those left turns he has to make as well. He drives on the wrong side of the road when it pleases his fancy. He reverses on high speed highways daring anyone to come and hit him if they can. He parks in the middle of the road. He drives without headlights. Taillights are considered by many commercial drivers, especially those who drive heavy vehicles, to be just an ornament of no safety value. He overtakes on corners knowing he cannot see if there is oncoming traffic. Many lives are lost by the practice of this singular act of irresponsibility, but we have accepted negligence as the will of Allah and thus we fail to punish such behavior. He drives on the wrong side of the road and flashes his high beam to warn you to yield or else. He drives on road shoulders, climbs sidewalks to overtake other road users. Many times I ask why I was not lucky enough to have two lives like most Nigerian drivers.

A Nigerian driver does not know the meaning of, or the uses of, lane markings – thus you can never see a Nigerian maintaining his lane for more than one minute assuming he is not already driving on the lane markings in his effort to prevent everyone from passing him. Oh, did I remind you that a Nigerian hates anyone who passes him on the road and he always makes it his duty to block as much of the road as possible? Well don’t try to pass him or you are in for a rude awakening. For a Nigerian, when he is ahead of you on the road, you must not dare to bother him. But when you are ahead of him he wants you to carry your vehicle on your head so that he can pass under you. He blows his horn incessantly without any need. Whenever there is a road sign that tells a Nigerian not to do something, his instinct is to do it anyway and then find out later why he was told not to do it in the first place. One famous sign on Jos - Abuja road remind all drivers how ‘reckless driving kills and dead drivers cannot complain’, yet no one heed the warning.

And if you wonder how careless Nigerians are, please observe us riding a motorcycle. The road is not as dangerous to the automobile driver as it is to the motorcyclist, but they are the most reckless of all road users. It is an unarguable fact that most of the time, when and if a car collides with an ‘Achaba’ rider, the car occupant(s) will not sustain any injuries, but the ‘achaba’ proprietor is always itching for an automobile to hit him. This year alone, trailers have trampled at least 6 ‘achaba’ riders in my hometown alone, due to their belief they have two lives and/or recklessness. None was able to use their second life and their bodies had to be scraped from the pavement. It is a wonder the rest do not all have broken or amputated limbs, considering how they think and behave on those two wheeled menaces turned into taxis.

The ‘Achaba’ or ‘Okada’ riders, as the commercial motorcyclists are locally referred to, are truly the worst criminals on our roads but they continue to carry our women and children who have no choice or voice. Our streets are choked up with open drainages, heaps of filthy trash, and uncontrolled sewage soak-aways notoriously built on public right of ways that an automobile taxi cannot possibly provide door to door service. Thus, the only available alternative for many commuters is to climb behind an ‘Achaba’ taxi.

And the shocker is that every single one of us is guilty of the above listed motorcycling or driving crimes. And yes, it is criminal to behave like that and expect everyone else to behave differently or unlike you! This bad attitude is so pervasive; it is evident when you find us in our banks, in our restaurants, in our offices, on our sports grounds, in our businesses, in our airports, in our parks and many other places we congregate.

As for the driving atrocities, there is a whole new force called the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) that is working to change our bad habits on the road. But the sheer stupidity that is wrapped in the idea that a uniformed unprotected individual on foot can somehow control a reckless Nigerian inside a 3-ton-plus vehicular weapon is impossible to ignore. This pitiful traffic police stand on our roads and try to block vehicles with nothing but their bodies. There is no need to remind you that many of these vehicles have very poor brakes or no brakes at all. And the few that do cannot stop, because once they stop, the engine will not start again. Someday you will watch this comedic encounter on our roads and laugh till you cry but, unfortunately, the work is necessary and the consequences are great. I am sure that more than a few of these traffic police have been killed or maimed already. There are many easier ways to control and enforce traffic rules. The world is full of ideas on how. The final conclusion I have drawn about our drivers is that they do not think a life is worth much!

And to put it all into a true Nigerian perspective, the almighty, all knowing Federal Government has invented a new campaign called ‘Re-branding Nigeria initiative’. It has called on Nigerians to embrace attitudinal reorientation to ensure the success of the initiative. They tell us that we must all work towards giving Nigeria a new image. Thus we are continually bombarded with a new logo and the slogan “Good people, Great Nation”. They believe that if you spend 165 million Naira and tell us a lie continuously long enough, someday it will become true. Our leaders have been doing it for years. We don’t like the truth it seems.

Please someone please tell me. What are we truly good at or great for?

Electricity we cannot generate. Water we cannot pump. Roads we cannot build. Factories we cannot run or maintain. Locomotives that stand still on rails that continues to rust. Oil that has become our curse and crude we cannot refine. Healthcare the poor cannot afford and elites must cross our border to get. Education we have failed to provide. Mountains of Infrastructure decaying due to neglect. Employment that is unavailable. Crime rate that has made our homes resemble prisons. Surrounded by incredible filth we have refused to clean. Abandoned our children and called them Almajiris. The failures are too numerous to list. Thus, what is our claim to greatness?

Watch the news and you will notice one incontrovertible truth. You will see that the news jumps from one celebration to another, from one meeting or retreat to another, from one wedding to another and so on. You will always find a bunch of us seated and one of us telling us how to improve on some old irrelevant idea, or how someone amongst us is the best Nigeria has ever produced. We meet, we plan, we retreat, we conference, we launch, we declare, we celebrate, we party, we wed, we camp and decamp, we profess and we doctor, but nary do we practice, implement, maintain or invent anything new. We are full of words and chatter but lacking in action. When will we finish the meetings and the celebrations and begin WORK?

We are notoriously good at celebrating failures. A simple example is the oil ministry. It has been headed by one person for most of my adult life and within that same period, the oil industry has completely collapsed. The NNPC only spends money on itself. And yes, we have improved from our four refineries down to ZERO over the years (You should chuckle here). Yet we are told no one can do a better job than this half awake octogenarian. Go figure! Why are we so afraid of anything new? And to confound the oil crisis, we now know that the oil rich territories were not even getting the crumbs. Please Niger Deltans take note; most poor Nigerians have never expected anything from the oil other than the crumbs anyway.

They told us they will sell the oil for about $40 a barrel. Today it is selling for about $70. Yet, they tell us there is budgetary shortfall. How many nations do you know that can get 75% increase in their budgeted revenue and still claim they have a problem meeting their budgets? I know only Nigeria! Yet Nigerians are about to pay more than most nations for a litre of petrol, if not already.

I have said these terrible truths so that some of us can get ‘round the bend’ about some of them and do something to change the few within our control. It is high time we own up and begun the work that must be done to make Nigeria a Great nation full of Good people.