@elgaxton

i feel u ma broda

u no go blame them. life no easy them there

but 2 tel u true, them still beta pass we wey naija ooooh

them de c d dough, but 4 here, 2 get common mai-gaurd work no easy not to talk of earning salary

but still @ that, them de stingy true-true

@Dakmanzero,
 things may be tough abroad but if you consider that these things are taken for granted here and are worth more than money to some people like myself.
 
1. Security- no harrasment from armed robbers ,area boys and police.nobody in Nigeria is immune from this no matter how rich.
 
2.Stability .you can plan your life 5-10 years ahead and be sure prices won't double overnight or things change drastically.From government to government there is continuity in policy
 
3. Personal comfort, for most people abroad no matter how poor things like good clothes a clean car , personal entertainment systems i.e DVDs, Plasma screen TV,mobile phones etc are not things you worry about before buying.These are stuff even the guy in one room can afford.
 
4. No PHCN so no need to stress about hand washing,ironing etc

 5. You get your dues without hustling,What effort you put in is what you get out.No need to know any body or bribe any body,thats why the man on the street who is a cleaner can tell the prime minister to F**K off because he owes you nothing as far as he is working.I used to work for the federal govt. in Naija,they paid us when they felt like it.Here on the 23at 8.00pm every month my pay is in the bank

Bottom line ,you can live your life with dignity and not go begging people for favours which even Governors and senators in Naija do all the time,(begging for posts)

@sienna

i feel u

some people can be irritating @ times

they just think u plug money 4rm the tree

@the one, i really liked your post. it is very balanced and i will like to reiterate the fact that the problem is the kinds of relationship that exitsed between the callers and the one being called. i have no issues with my friends in the uk. i never ask them for anything and they have no cause to look down on me. most of our from naija even go there for holidays.

but it has been my observation the america based nigerians are doing better. A friend who travels regularly because of the nature of his work confirmed it. He sees all our freinds on both side of the Atlantic.

Hmm very interesting topic!
first off @dakmanzero
It all boils down to choice abi? People generally tend to stick with what is favourable to them. I dont think anyone would decide to 'suffer' in the UK if they knew they coul have a better life in Nigeria and mind u, it's not always about money.

To be fair though, I only have one friend who calls me from Nigeria to ask for money and she does call and speak. All my other freinds call me on a regular basis just to gist with me and i call them too. They even send me stuff from Nigeria. Maby i just dont have pests as friends  

But for the one who keeps asking, she doesnt just say 'oh please can u send me a handbag' she specifies she want GUCCI and i ask her directly wether she thinks they can be picked on the ground! LOL!! the last time i was home, she came up with house rent issue asking me to pay her house rent. i just could not believe it. this is someone who does nthing for a living. she just wakes uo in the morning, paints her face and hits the street! haba! meanwhile, I who am supposed to dish out the money to her, I wake up at 6am and dont get home till at least 6pm. Even my youngest sister works why on earth would this friend expect me to pick up her bills? Even when i come and i give her stuff i got for her eg perfumes and clothes, she doesnt as much as say 'thank u' the thing tire me o!

And besides, IT IS cheaper to call abroad from nigeria than from the UK.

gidig:


but it has been my observation the america based nigerians are doing better. A friend who travels regularly because of the nature of his work confirmed it. He sees all our freinds on both side of the Atlantic.

This might seem so because of the cost of living. Everything in the US is half price compared to the UK. for instance something that sells for £10 in the UK will also sell for about $10 in the US and that is equal to about £5. their houses are bigger and cheaper. u can get a huge detached house in america for about $250k that is about £125k but in the UK even in areas that are not posh, u will be lucky to get a small 1 bed flat for that price. and when i say small i mean SMALL!

I no think sey Nigerians in U.K dey stingy or sey those in U.S dey represent pass them . I get two aunties for U.S and both of dem just come back naija one of them give me shirt wey I no fit even give as gift to orphanage sey na wetin she bring from America the other one usaul phrase na " please bear with me things are not easy over there" and the funniest thing was I didn't ask for anything.

On a serious note while I disagree that Nigerians are not lazy I also want to say some Nigerians don't mind passing their responsibilities to others. The same peson can come to you with one request after the other without minding if you have your own financial issues. The most annoying part is that they are somewhere looking out for you to know when you drive in after a hard day's work and spending about two hours in traffic when the only thing that is uppermost on your mind is sleep.

Na those of una wey they jand and yankee they mind all those naija's just change your phone numbers and give them only to your parents and siblings or spouses only after they have sworn an oath of secrecy not to divulge your number to a third party. I guess that will solve the problem.

For those of us wey dey naija and people they bring one request after the other (as if sey na prayer request dem dey drop 4 church) no try am, otherwise you go change your job, your house and if possible your looks.

Ok to all ma bros & sis in the Uk, take it easy. Just know that life is also good here. Imagine earning the equivalent of 2k ponds montly after tax here in motherland, you have allowi for  ur anual rent say about 2k ponds given every January + many, many benefits I can not mention here. Haba that is mouth watery and pls tell me why I shuold leave that and head to the Uk. Infact I 've been to the Uk, Europe and even the US so many times on company's account and I see some of my brothers really suffering Naija is not bad at all. The cost of living is alot cheaper + all the extra, extra. Sha I just love Naija .
I was just responding to that if u see Uk visa shi*t that guy wrote.
The bottom line, get ur degrees or whatever and come back home. Home is where the heart, as long as u continue to live abroad, u will always remain a second/ third class citizen and that is not fullfiling.
One love Naija

First of all it's not easy for any Nigerians that have come here to make a living, bills,bills and tax, tax to pay. And there are families back home who expects you to look after them, because they believe once you're in the Uk, you have hit the jack pot. They don't care how you get by just as long as you send something. Nigerians in the UK I would say are not stingy but careful with their money, it's hard earn money. Yes those that have will send whatever they can afford, it's not easy to make it here.

@ poster
they can be stingy,agreed but also agree with that once someone travels abroad people back home believe that u ve automaticaly become*Donald Trump*which is far from reality.bear in mind that even when those people make the money they also ve responsibilities and if they decide to be stingy with their money,its not an issue to bemoan.i think people shld not see it as an obligation  rather a priviledge that their folks abroad send them money. its their money,work hard and earn urs.

kolo mentality

Interesting thread.
I've had a somewhat similar argument with my friends in the past. They claim Rich people are the stingiest(?) ones and i claim they have a right to be! If you work hard through blood, sweat and tears you damn well have the right to choose who or who not to give your money to. I personally CANNOT ask anyone other than my parents for financial favours, even my boyfriend,if i have one. It is not right,ridculous even.
My siblings are British and we all grew up together but i am not because they are my step siblings. My sister has a life of her own. . .she's combining school with family(her husband isnt a British subject) so i would imagine the bulk of financial responsibilities rest on her. It would be absolutely ridiculous to ask her for financial assistance. In fact,if i were in her shoes and anyone asks me for money, i would hate that person but yet she manages to do what she can for me and even sometimes my dad.

On the other hand however,its obvious that some ignorant people believe that everyone living in Nigeria is either a thief or is living in abject poverty thats why it annoys me when my friends who live abroad call me up and ask me if there's "anything i need" like i am some kind of charity case.

As for the original poster of this thread. You seem rather angry. If someone/people dont want to pick up your call and wont call you back it means they dont want to talk to you and probably dont reaslise what a good friend you are. Leave them alone,its really that simple.

@ Poster.

I can understand when you say your calls are not returned by UK folks. When I was working in Naija, I used to make all the phone calls to my friends in the UK and hardly ever received a phone call from them. I did not mind this as I was very comfortable and wanted to maintain the relationships since they were my childhood friends. I bet its left for u to maintain the relationship if you think it is important. They will surely call you when they are about to land naija or are in naija and you can renew the relationship.

Being in the UK now and looking at my phone contacts, in what priority should I call people in naija? With countless number of friends, family members, relatives, ex-schoolmates, ex-colleagues, ex-neighbours, ex-service providers, where is the time and resources to call everyone? When u don't call, its like we no dey hear from you, abi u don abandon us. Even call cards to Naija actually give you about half the stated minutes when u start calling, abi my UK people, una fit tell me which card better pass when I go dey buy?  

People are strictly on budget here, plan and account for every expense. Its a lot easier to plan becos things are pretty much stable and predictable. Imagine paying for things such as TV licence when u buy a TV. Lots of bills and if u default, u get a bad credit rating or go to jail.

For those comparing the UK with US, we all have our preferences in live. What is important to you may not be to another person. I never initially liked the UK in the past but have come to very much love the place. I have visited the US several times and must say that it is very different in structure and lifestyle to the UK. I should say that it is beautiful though. Prices are higher in the UK than US and like other posters said, what is $10 in the US is £10 in the Uk, yet the pound is almost twice the dollar!

Do I expect Nigerians in the US to do better than those in the UK? I cant say. UK is an Island and job opportunities are not vastly created like in the US.

Food for thought: Those of you calmouring for people to return, una go get competition for the already limited jobs if people come back. u know how many them be? Where una wan accomodate them and their families?

he he he.

@ Sienna, please tell them that you can live abroad and live a good life. I would always say that most Nigerians are ignorant which is why they believe that everybody in the UK is like their poor relatives and friends struggling here. I have never and by God's grace will never suffer in the UK so when people start saying rubbish like pack your bags home or you're a second class citizen, I get really irritated (like what do they know??). Back to the topic at hand, I hardly call Nigeria these days and that is because my life has moved on, I have new friends and a new life. I call my good friends once in a while, I remember their birthdays and all that good stuff but the truth is my life has moved on.

There is also the call card issue esp when you can't call Naija directly from your phone but Nigerians want you to call right this minute.  I need to go out and buy a call card but can I really be bothered to leave my house to buy a card so we can have an irrelevant conversation. On my old phone, I could call Nigeria directly and to be honest it wasn't that expensive but I can't even do that on my new contract because calls to Naija have been banned which I am sure is no thanks to my odu brothers and sisters. To the original poster, bear in mind that your true friends will keep in touch where ever they are. If they don't, then they don't consider you guys close enough to waste their credit on.

@ dakmanzero, The life here is better than NIGERIA. As for the HUSTLING. Everybody does even the whites. Everything must be done according to calculation, even when you think you earn so much money. .Most of them get lucky because they are single parents so the government supports them financially.
I love my school too much to go back to naija to study. There's a very BIG DIFFERENCE. Also, I have my nuclear family, loadz of friendz and cousins around so I don't feel home sick.

U can live comfortably  anywhere

People in d UK  wld be seen to b stingy cos they hav to save evry penny
if not they r doomed
wiv their small cramped houses abi apartments

There is danger evrywhere
wiv all d bomb threats n mindless killings
atleast robbers in Naija hav a reason

So pple let em Janded Naijans Be, we dont need them oh!

it depends on how you see it the word' stingy ' people in UK are even trying i raise my arm for them. Uk is not like any other oversea countries in terms of spending. Whatever you do you pay, enough bills are paid over there. unlike here in Nigeria where some people hardily pay thier light bills not to talk of taxes. Abeg una dey try for UK. but that doesn,t mean that you dont extend hands to your loved ones at home. Keep trying we will all survive

Elgaxton!! they may be three reasons for that 1) they may be very busy 2) the cost of calling in uk is very expensive if you don't know and 3) you should know how naija pple the behave now? if person wey never comot for em village and e come go place like uk, watin u think say go dey come em mind every seconds of em time? e go flenchjo before e go come remember say e get pple for naija. abeg no vex jare. na so them dey do.

Siena:

"it annoys me when my friends who live abroad call me up and ask me if there's "anything i need" like i am some kind of charity case."

Either way, it would appear, you can't please everyone!

Tell me about it my brother. U can never win with human beings.

nigerians in nigeria are very very magnanimous. just last week my old friend sent me 50,000 naira to help me out here in the UK. yesterday my flatmates friend from nigeria sent him 700,000 naira from calabar. so anytime we have a problem we flash our friends at home and they send us hundreds of thousands of naira

i'm serious they are very nice and today my friend called from enugu, we spoke for 3 hours non stop. from his landline directly. he sent me a cheque for my tuition too. i hope to get it next week.

the best people in the world are those nigerians in nigeria they also send enough money to thier relatives in the village

finally, i advise the nigerians in nigeria, never leave the country to come to the UK or any other country b/c once you leave, you will become bad, stingy, hopeless and nasty. just stay put in nigeria and try to help your brothers in the UK who are strugglinh with common phone calls.

lol

Has anyone notuced that anytime there is a debate about how things are in Naija and how they are abroad, people generally dig trenches? THis post has been enlightening for me but I dont think people in the Uk are stingy. They prolly have bills to pay. I have loads of friends in the Uk and a few in the US but our relationship is based on mutual respect we have for one another and not how our locations have changed our status.

The issue really is the quality of friendship you share. I have a good friend in South Africa who texts me very regularly and call from time to time. She was in Naija last year and all of us loaded her with stuffs when she was going back to Jo burg;stuffs she cant get easily back there including Nigerian Cds and things like that.

We spent money of the relationship because we all know that if the relationship were the other way, She'd do the same way. Does she feel better than any of us? No!! And I really do think that things should be seen in that context.

This is the lesson: If the people in your social network are not developing as you are, they will become a burden to you later on in life.It does not matter where you are! Make sure you help your friends with the oppurtunities that will better them as they move along in life.They will not have cause to burden you. And realise that you cant be friends to everyone!

A friend told of how he sent 100 pounds to his auntie. The lady told everyone in the village. Now the boy is in trouble. Everyone calls asking for 100 pounds.

For all those whining about UK guys being stingy with calls and money, remember that you are not the only one calling. Someone just rang before you did.

I call my immediate family in nigeria as often as I can. They also call when they don't hear from me. They don't give drop-calls. They understand the situation here more than most of my friends.

But to tell the truth, some of my friends from nigeria call me. I call them too, but more regularly. They are my good friends because they don't ask for money when they call. They don't "flash" me either. They call to hear from me.

My cousin called couple of weeks ago. He asked for money to set up a business. I told him I didn't have and he kept on calling. It's annoying when people become a thorn in the flesh.

And do you know what is so annoying? My access card to my university has just been stopped because I'm still owing 1000 pounds. I need to pay up to be able to gain access to library, laboratory etc. I am supposed to be doing my experiment (for my thesis) in the lab right now, but I don't have access. I can't check my last semester result online because my account has been suspended. In the midst of this, I keep on getting threatning calls from home.

I always tell my multitude of friends to write me via e-mail. I will reply. But all claim they want to hear my voice.

The heavens were opened when I came here. People I never spoke to before, people that never spoke to me before, everybody started writing, asking for connections, money and return calls.

Until I came here, I never bothered anyone abroad with a  call. I always sent e-mails since  it is affordable from nigeria.

Maybe America is better. I have a sister in the US and she's doing well. I also know about nigerians who're doing pretty ok here. It depends of status.  I don't believe students in the US (who are not in any form of scholarship) are better off that their counterparts in the UK. I will be travelling to America end of this month. I will see if US is better. Maybe I need to work towards relocating there if it is the eldo ra do.

I have the intention of helping my friends whenever I'm able to. I know who my real friends are.

when an average joe gets a Visa by the grace of God and enters UK, he does not automatically become Abramovich that can dole out millions. He is still average Joe.

Nigerians in the UK are not stingy. Life in the UK is not as easy as people think. Toooooooooooooooooooo many things to pay for i see no one has mentioned child care. In Nigeria things are different, there is always someone to look after your child while you go to work. imagine paying £160 a week for childcare (that is for one child). not to mention other bills and taxes.
There is also the time factor. So many people work long shifts here e.g 8am-8pm. when u get back home after a long shift the last thing u need is someone flashing you. Life in UK can be stressful, there is no time to rest unless u create time for yourself.
SOME, I SAID SOME NIGERIANS ARE LIVING COMFORTABLY IN NIGERIA. but they still ask their relatives or friends for their hard earned cash. Living in London is not a bed of roses, but i thank God I'm not suffering.
Nigerians in UK are not stingy. We just have soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many things to spend money on.

@ seina and angel, whoever said you can win both ways? ? ? Why would anyone ask me if i need anything because they are abroad? When they were here, why did the so called angel Gabriels not ask me if i needed anything? Abegi!

there is joy in giving out ,but the problem is when one million people are calling to ask for money
abi u be central bank? some dont even have any real need for the money they  ask for, than to shak guilder
and boast ( man mi dey for london )

thank God i didn't hear that Nigerians in Spain are stingy

romeo:

thank God i didn't hear that Nigerians in Spain are stingy

i hear the ones in spain are so tight that they are looking for a new word to distiguish them from just being stingy infact so tight fisted that they even decide to speak spanish when they dont want to answer calls making the miserable caller from nigeria wondering if it was wrong number

hbrednic:

there is joy in giving out ,but the problem is when one million people are calling to ask for money
abi u be central bank? some don't even have any real need for the money they ask for, than to shak guilder
and boast ( man mi dey for london )

For some reason, that was so damn funny!