It is not uncommon in Nigeria today to admire and praise to high heavens anything classified as “foreign” or “imported”.

Statements like “mine is the foreign one”, “they sent it from abroad”, “I don’t want the local one o” “the foreign one is better” and the likes are very common in our everyday lives as Nigerians when buying, selling or doing other daily interactions.

From Clothes, food items (processed and raw), plastic products, furniture, electronic fittings, movies and the likes. The craze and preference for foreign products cuts across all facets of our lives.

It is rather funny when you see upcoming Nigerians take for instance who would one day aspire to become stars like the Omotola Ekehindes and the Pete Edochies of Nollywood, making jest of Nigerian home videos and saying they prefer foreign movies, now when everyone prefers foreign movies like them, who would watch their movies when they start acting tomorrow and how would such individuals grow.

Some Nigerians do not want to be associated with the word ‘local’ as they see it as a bad word denoting something inferior, counterfeit or underdeveloped. Little wonder a Nigerian would understand the word “expatriate” to mean a foreign “expert”.

As long as you produce in Nigeria, your goods and services are ‘local’.

At times, one exasperatingly hear Nigerians saying ‘na fake, na Aba-Made”. Such people would have a rethink if only they out take time to see the improved quality of goods coming out from Aba, Nnewi, Kano, Lagos and other Nigerian Manufacturing hubs. These manufacturers have improved and would continue to improve progressively.

Even in the corporate and business world, one would find foreigners being employed for jobs Nigerians can do earning much more than their Nigerian Counterparts. These foreigners do also enjoy more in terms of other perquisites of the office they occupy.

It is very worrisome when you see the average Nigerian who produces goods in Nigeria still preferring other foreign goods to local goods not produced by him.

All these has practically help to reduce Nigeria to a dumping ground for all sorts of sub-standard and at times expired goods.

Agreed there are goods and services (like some categories of healthcare, education etc) that are needed in Nigeria but are not produced in Nigeria, this is normal in every other country of the world as no country produces entirely what it consumes.

When we buy and pay for foreign goods, we continuously grow and develop the economy of other countries’ especially when such goods have local substitutes. This stagnates and under-develops the Nigerian economy in the process. Read more[url][/url]https://basenewsng.com/2020/05/21/the-craze-for-foreign-goods-and-services/