As a Nigerian I shouldn’t be writing or saying something as controversial as this especially since I live and work with Nigerians. But what is worth mentioning is worth mentioning as far as I’m concerned.

A survey conducted some years ago about who the shame of Africa really was revealed that an overwhelming number of respondents mentioned Nigeria as the country with the most bad eggs in Africa and sad as this may sound, it’s absolutely true. That is not to say other Africans are saints just that we Nigerians lead the rest of Africa when it comes to breaking rules and misbehaving and here are my reasons;

Eye Service and Yes Men

Nigerians are very good at massaging the egos of their superiors/bosses to such an extent that you might even think they worship them. The average Nigerian ‘big man’ wants to be respected but doesn’t want to respect others. So he does things that will make him recognized as superior to others. For instance if he drives a certain kind of car, no one under him should drive something as expensive or even more expensive else they’ll be some real trouble for that ‘erring’ employee. This in turn makes subordinates fear their bosses and act like ‘eye servants’ and yes men doing what the boss likes only when he/she is around. Either way it’s not a good behaviour which we Nigerians should keep.

VIP ‘Maltreatment’

How about VIPs who shut down the airspace because they want to board a particular flight or don’t want to struggle with “ordinary people”. Even on land sometimes when a VIP is traveling in or out of the state or country a sizeable chunk of the road is blocked to enable him/her pass through even if there’s an emergency like an ambulance with a very sick person hurrying to the hospital everyone must wait till this VIP passes through first. The most annoying part is if the VIP in question is a serious underperformer or an incompetent government official. Among all African countries Nigeria is one of the few countries where this behaviour is rampant.

Pull Him Down Syndrome (PHD)

There are envious people everywhere in the world but among Nigerians there’s one very annoying form of envy that’s common – the PHD kind of envy. Feeling angry with another person because he/she bought a car you may never be able to buy in your lifetime and hating him for that to the extent that you try to destroy his reputation or set him up for an offence he hasn’t committed is a common experience not a few people have had. I remember during my NYSC days when I discovered that local urchins would become hostile for no justifiable reasons it didn’t occur to me that their hatred was borne out of frustration and inferiority complex that their age mate seemed to be faring better than them.

Glorifying Scams

Nigeria is the Scam Capital of the world whether we like it or not. It has gotten so bad that email scam has now gotten a new name 419 or Nigerian email scam because of the frequency of the crimes. Although ‘419’ scams didn’t originate in Nigeria many of our brothers have taken it to another level that we now have even glorify scammers in our midst.

Complain about Government

It is very common for Nigerians to complain endlessly about government failing the people but very uncommon to find a Nigerian who’s law abiding and not willing to cut corners. The same person who accuses government officials of stealing without evidence to back his/her accusation is often times the one trying to induce government officials to help him/her cut corners to secure employment, admission or contracts in government. The same Nigerians that complain government isn’t doing enough to improve power supply will look away and not report people vandalizing transformers of other public electric infrastructure.

This is my humble opinion about some of the things we as Nigerians do to ourselves, how we expect to have a country where things work when we reason and act this way beats me.