My Verdict after visiting over 7 West African Countries, is quite straight forward and simple. And that is that we Nigerians are the architect and cause of our own problems and misfortune. As the popular native adage that says and i quote :

" You will forever think that your father's farm is the largest on planet earth until you visit other peoples fathers farms "

That is the exact case of Nigeria, A visit to neigbouring ecowas countries namely : Togo, Benin , Ghana, Cote de voire, Mail , Senegal, Gambia and Guinea only proved one thing to me as a person and that is that it isn't until a country has Oil before her citizens can live a descent and average life.

God i weep for this country because we claim to be Giants of Africa but to be factual we are just Giants of our backyard and not even worthy to be called Giants of Ecowas. The basic amenities that you need to live the life of a moderate or average person in these countries are nothing more that stable power supply, good roads, affordable housing , portable water supply and access to proper health care.

An average francophone country citizen may not be as rich, extravagant and ego-centric as we Nigerians but they have one virtue that sets them apart,they are contented with what they have therefore the desire for instant wealth and temptation to embezzle public funds is very very minimal.

Its sad that we Nigerians will be 50 years any moment from now yet we have nothing to celebrate or smile about except for our corrupt leaders and political office holders. Recently the news flying around about our law makers making more money that a serving US president gets one wondering if we really are not being taken for fools by our elite political class.

The money this nations the elite political class embezzel and steal is practically an evidence that we are the architects of our own misfortunes but to  in order to get a cleaere picture of what i am talking about then just dust your e passport and board a bus to any neigbouring ecowas country and spend just 2 days in probably Ghana, Benin or even Togo.