Nothing seems to provoke fury, indeed unbridled rage on this website and across the land more than when some prominent Nigerian goes abroad and criticises the brazenly obvious ills in our society. The response always revolves around the excuse that we should not wash our dirty linen in public, Americans and westerners don’t do the same etc etc.

This is more than people with something to hide not wanting exposure where they can’t use their powers of coercion and manipulation to conceal their crimes, as many otherwise innocent Nigerians tend to join in the chorus of hate towards anybody who dare says outside our shores the reality most people endure in it. There is something deep rooted in the African mindset that seems to abhor facing up to reality, a deeply embedded moral cowardice to be seen in offices, business and families in our society that accepts any condition no matter how bad, how humiliating as long as we can look good to outsiders.


People who struggle to feed their families, will never be short of money to buy clothes for the next party, men who can’t pay their kids school fees but will always find money to upgrade their mobile phones regardless of the expense, even when the replaced ones are perfectly functional. The disease affects even the Diaspora, Not a few Africans drive the flashiest cars yet head for the economy shelves of the big supermarkets for their groceries. There are families (from Africa in Europe) who ration the sugar for their families, but will never be seen without the latest designer clothes outside their front doors. There are people whose kids will never be seen without the latest computer gadgets but who shovel the cheapest, unhealthiest food down their throats to ‘save costs’

On any high street in the UK for instance many small Asian businessmen will be mistaken for labourers at first sight. The dress simply but most of their businesses are worth millions and have endured for decades. African businessmen on the same streets dress like kings and the average life span of their businesses tend to range from 4 – 5 years.


Why are we so obsessed with outward appearance, even when it’s not backed by any internal substance? The mindset of an Asian or western businessman is hard work, enterprise, risk taking and innovation. In Africa or amongst Africans, business means luxury, enterprise is equated with elegance. So profit is rarely re-invested, it is immediately spent on conspicuous consumption. So even when the businesses don’t collapse, they don’t expand. There is no drive to innovate, to take risks. The ultimate aim is to look the part. ‘Ah that man is a business man he has a new Lexus’. Not that man is a businessman; he opened a shop 2 years ago now he has 7. In Europe every ethnic group has produced restaurants that have prospered by conquering the western palate, except Africans. Go to any Chinese restaurant anywhere in Europe and most people there will be Caucasian, not Chinese. Go to any African restaurant and you will struggle to see a non black face.

What is the reason; it’s not as if our food is not tasty. Again it is a cowardly desire not to take risks, to innovate. The Chinese, Indian, Arab and Thai menu has evolved. The African menu has not. We still eat the same way our forebears did 200 hundred years ago in a radically changed environment. Our food has not changed – it is still the same old format – a heavy cereal with a separate stew. Eba, iyan etc. But these foods were created for a period that has been largely bypassed at least in the west. Our foods were created at a time when most people worked on the farms, hard punishing labour requiring foods heavy in carbohydrates, to burn off to release energy. Now many people work in offices – having eba or iyan at lunch means you won’t be productive when you return to your desk, because the work does not require you to burn off energy as our ancestors did. So we fall asleep at our desks. How can such a menu attract foreigners? But still we refuse to change because of a fear of risk taking allied to the desperation to keep up appearances


It is the same with the way we live. We have some of the most beautiful apartments in the world (lets leave aside the fact that most of the money used to build them was stolen). Compared to many luxury apartments in other parts of the world, they look good. However go inside and you find shoddy finishes, poor coordination, tasteless furnishing, and a lack of real refinement, which in the minds of the African bourgeois and aspiring classes means big, not necessarily brilliant. . In the homes of the wealthy Europeans or Asians the homes might not look that great from outside – but enter inside its another world, Persian rugs, old antiques, sculptures etc. A sense of real taste and culture. Why are we so shallow? We delude ourselves that we know how to live, yet we in reality don’t know how to even enjoy the life we pretend to love so much. We attend parties that we don’t enjoy, parties were we sit staring for most of the time like beheaded goats because we don’t want to do anything wrong, to draw attention to ourselves for the wrong reasons to look bad lojuagbo

Rich westerners have a love of high art, paintings, and exquisite carvings. I can count the number of times I have seen Africans in museums admiring the finest creations of human civilisation anywhere in the world. We prefer shopping - nothing wrong with that – but how many of the things that we buy can we produce. We buy the latest multimedia gadgets, the finest electronics, yet we can’t build a factory to produce simple radios at a technical a level achieved in other parts of the world 100 years ago.


In our families the problem is the same. There is a problem – take the easy way out blame everybody, so nobody is offended including whoever has committed the offence. We call that wisdom. Of course there are times when both parties could be at fault. But it also possible that one person is at fault, but you will struggle to find a family on this continent that will not seek to share the blame around, ostensibly to reach a compromise but in reality so they can remain on good terms with both parties or at least the offending one in a society where very principle is available for compromise, where standards exist on nothing where anybody who takes a clear stance on anything is immediately dismissed as mad, extreme etc. A man has slept with his house girl, ok blame the man, but also the woman for not putting enough salt in the food tempting the man to sleep with another woman!! A woman stabbed her husband; ok blame the woman, but also the man for not running away fast enough!!!- We are all to blame, so nobody is to blame; we are all responsible so nobody is responsible. All Nigerians are corrupt so don’t blame the government. Leadership has power and privilege but not responsibility and accountability. The government is ‘trying’ ‘they are trying’. What is the point of trying without succeeding? A society of endless compromises where the aim as always is to keep a clean front to outsiders for a home rotting and putrefying inside.


When we end up dying it is the same people screaming that we should not expose our ills to outsiders who will demand immediate outside medical intervention.


We condemn people for going to the west to criticise what we all know is true, trying to silence them. Yet when the problem, because it has not been treated, explodes, it is the same people who now insist we don’t tell the world our problems (problems the foreigners are far more aware of than we are – where is the stolen money kept UBA Ikeja?) it is these same people who will demand for armed western intervention to save their skins and their stolen property

Lovely, thought provoking write up.

odumorun 1: Nothing seems to provoke fury, indeed unbridled rage on this website and across the land more than when some prominent Nigerian goes abroad and criticises the brazenly obvious ills in our society. The response always revolves around the excuse that we should not wash our dirty linen in public, Americans and westerners don’t do the same etc etc.

This is more than people with something to hide not wanting exposure where they can’t use their powers of coercion and manipulation to conceal their crimes, as many otherwise innocent Nigerians tend to join in the chorus of hate towards anybody who dare says outside our shores the reality most people endure in it. There is something deep rooted in the African mindset that seems to abhor facing up to reality, a deeply embedded moral cowardice to be seen in offices, business and families in our society that accepts any condition no matter how bad, how humiliating as long as we can look good to outsiders.


People who struggle to feed their families, will never be short of money to buy clothes for the next party, men who can’t pay their kids school fees but will always find money to upgrade their mobile phones regardless of the expense, even when the replaced ones are perfectly functional. The disease affects even the Diaspora, Not a few Africans drive the flashiest cars yet head for the economy shelves of the big supermarkets for their groceries. There are families (from Africa in Europe) who ration the sugar for their families, but will never be seen without the latest designer clothes outside their front doors. There are people whose kids will never be seen without the latest computer gadgets but who shovel the cheapest, unhealthiest food down their throats to ‘save costs’

On any high street in the UK for instance many small Asian businessmen will be mistaken for labourers at first sight. The dress simply but most of their businesses are worth millions and have endured for decades. African businessmen on the same streets dress like kings and the average life span of their businesses tend to range from 4 – 5 years.


Why are we so obsessed with outward appearance, even when it’s not backed by any internal substance? The mindset of an Asian or western businessman is hard work, enterprise, risk taking and innovation. In Africa or amongst Africans, business means luxury, enterprise is equated with elegance. So profit is rarely re-invested, it is immediately spent on conspicuous consumption. So even when the businesses don’t collapse, they don’t expand. There is no drive to innovate, to take risks. The ultimate aim is to look the part. ‘Ah that man is a business man he has a new Lexus’. Not that man is a businessman; he opened a shop 2 years ago now he has 7. In Europe every ethnic group has produced restaurants that have prospered by conquering the western palate, except Africans. Go to any Chinese restaurant anywhere in Europe and most people there will be Caucasian, not Chinese. Go to any African restaurant and you will struggle to see a non black face.

What is the reason; it’s not as if our food is not tasty. Again it is a cowardly desire not to take risks, to innovate. The Chinese, Indian, Arab and Thai menu has evolved. The African menu has not. We still eat the same way our forebears did 200 hundred years ago in a radically changed environment. Our food has not changed – it is still the same old format – a heavy cereal with a separate stew. Eba, iyan etc. But these foods were created for a period that has been largely bypassed at least in the west. Our foods were created at a time when most people worked on the farms, hard punishing labour requiring foods heavy in carbohydrates, to burn off to release energy. Now many people work in offices – having eba or iyan at lunch means you won’t be productive when you return to your desk, because the work does not require you to burn off energy as our ancestors did. So we fall asleep at our desks. How can such a menu attract foreigners? But still we refuse to change because of a fear of risk taking allied to the desperation to keep up appearances


It is the same with the way we live. We have some of the most beautiful apartments in the world (lets leave aside the fact that most of the money used to build them was stolen). Compared to many luxury apartments in other parts of the world, they look good. However go inside and you find shoddy finishes, poor coordination, tasteless furnishing, and a lack of real refinement, which in the minds of the African bourgeois and aspiring classes means big, not necessarily brilliant. . In the homes of the wealthy Europeans or Asians the homes might not look that great from outside – but enter inside its another world, Persian rugs, old antiques, sculptures etc. A sense of real taste and culture. Why are we so shallow? We delude ourselves that we know how to live, yet we in reality don’t know how to even enjoy the life we pretend to love so much. We attend parties that we don’t enjoy, parties were we sit staring for most of the time like beheaded goats because we don’t want to do anything wrong, to draw attention to ourselves for the wrong reasons to look bad lojuagbo

Rich westerners have a love of high art, paintings, and exquisite carvings. I can count the number of times I have seen Africans in museums admiring the finest creations of human civilisation anywhere in the world. We prefer shopping - nothing wrong with that – but how many of the things that we buy can we produce. We buy the latest multimedia gadgets, the finest electronics, yet we can’t build a factory to produce simple radios at a technical a level achieved in other parts of the world 100 years ago.


In our families the problem is the same. There is a problem – take the easy way out blame everybody, so nobody is offended including whoever has committed the offence. We call that wisdom. Of course there are times when both parties could be at fault. But it also possible that one person is at fault, but you will struggle to find a family on this continent that will not seek to share the blame around, ostensibly to reach a compromise but in reality so they can remain on good terms with both parties or at least the offending one in a society where very principle is available for compromise, where standards exist on nothing where anybody who takes a clear stance on anything is immediately dismissed as mad, extreme etc. A man has slept with his house girl, ok blame the man, but also the woman for not putting enough salt in the food tempting the man to sleep with another woman!! A woman stabbed her husband; ok blame the woman, but also the man for not running away fast enough!!!- We are all to blame, so nobody is to blame; we are all responsible so nobody is responsible. All Nigerians are corrupt so don’t blame the government. Leadership has power and privilege but not responsibility and accountability. The government is ‘trying’ ‘they are trying’. What is the point of trying without succeeding? A society of endless compromises where the aim as always is to keep a clean front to outsiders for a home rotting and putrefying inside.


When we end up dying it is the same people screaming that we should not expose our ills to outsiders who will demand immediate outside medical intervention.


We condemn people for going to the west to criticise what we all know is true, trying to silence them. Yet when the problem, because it has not been treated, explodes, it is the same people who now insist we don’t tell the world our problems (problems the foreigners are far more aware of than we are – where is the stolen money kept UBA Ikeja?) it is these same people who will demand for armed western intervention to save their skins and their stolen property

This is actually the best post of the year till date.

I can't believe there are actually "Nigerians" who can think this way.

You are spot on in your entirety but of course those "What's my business" local monkeys are gonna downplay this your gospel truth about who they actually are. Can you imagine the types of leaders we have in this country day in and day out. When the fuel scarcity hit, when you thought people were going to behave like EVERYONE else has done worldwide in that situation (REVOLT and Overthrow the powers that be) they turned the whole thing into a party.

Then they will go to one self acclaimed shuurch on Sunday to play with a "pastor" who is simply imitating one Black baptist preacher he saw on television.

Then we will throw Nollywood party and take pictures to put on top Nairaland abi facebook, when those movies are worse than a Freshman Media major's production at University of Florda.

We are quick to devour Jallof rice and Suya, and flush it down with Guinness, day in day day out, on the gen day in day out, import phones from US and cars from US day in and day out.

We get visa to go to America to shop till we drop for our pikin and brother's pikin. Then when pikin get heart problem in Naija, wetin we wan do with all those clothes we dey buy from Yankee?

By the way, no one is copying us, not our movies, not our music, not our way of speaking, not our cities, and frankly, hardly anything.

odumorun 1: Nothing seems to provoke fury, indeed unbridled rage on this website and across the land more than when some prominent Nigerian goes abroad and criticises the brazenly obvious ills in our society. The response always revolves around the excuse that we should not wash our dirty linen in public, Americans and westerners don’t do the same etc etc.

I have NEVER seen that particular response by forumers to outside criticism which you claim to be common. Care to point us to a few links?

People who struggle to feed their families, will never be short of money to buy clothes for the next party

Do you personally know of such people? Care to share the story? I don't know anyone who struggles to feed their kids but always buys the latest clothes for parties.

men who can’t pay their kids school fees but will always find money to upgrade their mobile phones regardless of the expense

Again, I know of no such Nigerians. If they exist, they must be very few. You do realise that majority of mobile phones in Nigeria are basic phones?

The disease affects even the Diaspora, Not a few Africans drive the flashiest cars yet head for the economy shelves of the big supermarkets for their groceries.

More baseless innuendo..

There are families (from Africa in Europe) who ration the sugar for their families, but will never be seen without the latest designer clothes outside their front doors.

Perhaps you saw a man trying to cut down on the diabetes risk in his family and mistook his sugar aversion for miserliness? Sugar costs next to nothing in western nations.

On any high street in the UK for instance many small Asian businessmen will be mistaken for labourers at first sight. The dress simply but most of their businesses are worth millions and have endured for decades. African businessmen on the same streets dress like kings and the average life span of their businesses tend to range from 4 – 5 years.

More baseless and stupid innuendo. Asians have settled in the UK since the 1950s. Africans only began to settle there in large number in the 1990s, so Asians have longer established businesses. As for dress styles, it all depends on the nature of the business. Asian businesses are mostly shop and warehouse based, while African businesses tend to be in services like estate agency, accountancy, law, international business etc, for which you need to dress corporate.

Why are we so obsessed with outward appearance, even when it’s not backed by any internal substance? The mindset of an Asian or western businessman is hard work, enterprise, risk taking and innovation. In Africa or amongst Africans, business means luxury, enterprise is equated with elegance. So profit is rarely re-invested, it is immediately spent on conspicuous consumption.

This is all so much innuendo based on your in-built racial bias and prejudice. Essentially, racist smears with nothing founded on any statistics or research. How can YOU stand in one place and see all these things that ''black people'' supposedly do, with zero empirical research?

All you're doing is spewing your self-loathing based on racial prejudice. The average white man today in America and Europe is sinking in debt owing to years of credit-fuelled dinner parties, luxury trips to Ibiza, Miami, large houses and cars they can't afford. Repossessions are at an all-time high, as is their suicide rate following multiple business and career failures. Millions were living beyond their means, and this was what led to the global financial crisis, from which the world is yet to recover!

Yet, not one of you self loathing noisemakers has ever ONCE attacked whites for their addiction to ''luxury and conspicuous consumption''. It is only blacks that you see to insult.

In Europe every ethnic group has produced restaurants that have prospered by conquering the western palate, except Africans. Go to any Chinese restaurant anywhere in Europe and most people there will be Caucasian, not Chinese. Go to any African restaurant and you will struggle to see a non black face.

Ah.. The white man doesn't wish to eat fufu and okro with cowfoot, so it must be the black man's fault.

Why do I even bother with you Why don't YOU set up a restaurant in Europe and attract their custom? Since it's an area that Africans have 'failed' in, that must be a goldmine for a sharp guy like you who 'knows how'. So why haven't you cleaned up the profits?

What is the reason. it’s not as if our food is not tasty. Again it is a cowardly desire not to take risks, to innovate. The Chinese, Indian, Arab and Thai menu has evolved. The African menu has not. We still eat the same way our forebears did 200 hundred years ago in a radically changed environment. Our food has not changed – it is still the same old format – a heavy cereal with a separate stew. Eba, iyan etc. But these foods were created for a period that has been largely bypassed at least in the west. Our foods were created at a time when most people worked on the farms, hard punishing labour requiring foods heavy in carbohydrates, to burn off to release energy. Now many people work in offices – having eba or iyan at lunch means you won’t be productive when you return to your desk, because the work does not require you to burn off energy as our ancestors did. So we fall asleep at our desks. How can such a menu attract foreigners? But still we refuse to change because of a fear of risk taking allied to the desperation to keep up appearances

Your grammar is tooooooooo much. WHAT IS STOPPING YOU MR MAN?

Why don't YOU take it to 'the next level'? You are a bigger part of the 'African problem' than you realise. Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk. We are all experts at identifying ''the problem with the black man''. OYA HELP SOLVE IT BY STARTING YOUR OWN INNOVATIVE RESTAURANT. THAT IS HOW YOU MAKE A STATEMENT. NOT BY COMING HERE TO INSULT YOUR SENIOR BROTHERS.

It is the same with the way we live. We have some of the most beautiful apartments in the world (lets leave aside the fact that most of the money used to build them was stolen).

Do you have any proof of that or is that just another beer parlour allegation?

Compared to many luxury apartments in other parts of the world, they look good. However go inside and you find shoddy finishes, poor coordination, tasteless furnishing, and a lack of real refinement

Out of the several million luxurious homes in Nigeria, how many have you personally been in? 5? 10? 100? Can't you see you're an ignorant bozo with nothing better to do than come in here to insult his elders?

In the homes of the wealthy Europeans or Asians the homes might not look that great from outside – but enter inside its another world, Persian rugs, old antiques, sculptures etc. A sense of real taste and culture.

You are a white worshipping clown. So if I don't care for European antique furniture it means I have poor taste? If I prefer oil paintings to sculpture it means I'm not as refined as an Asian? If I prefer African masks to Picasso and Rembrandt, I'm not sophisticated?

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.

Rich westerners have a love of high art, paintings, and exquisite carvings. I can count the number of times I have seen Africans in museums admiring the finest creations of human civilisation anywhere in the world.

You expect to see as many Africans in European museums as the white population? Why exactly should Africans be especially interested in European museums? We have our museums in Nigeria. When you visit them (which you haven't) you will see blacks there admiring OUR ancient works.

Oh, and rich Nigerians love their art by the way, especially Nigerian art, and think nothing of paying millions of naira for a work of art. You just haven't met too many of them so you wouldn't know.

We buy the latest multimedia gadgets, the finest electronics, yet we can’t build a factory to produce simple radios at a technical a level achieved in other parts of the world 100 years ago.

Nobody buys ''simple radios'' any more, so it would be foolhardy setting up a factory for that. We do have local firms that manufacture motor vehicles and computers though, like INNOSON and Zinox. Ever heard of them?

Thought not.

^^^^

I'm glad you took out the time to read the poster's post in it's entirety, and decided to repond to it in English.

So much for the white man worship no?

He's right and you are wrong and are defensive as typical of people from a much failed country.

Look, just check out the threads on Nairalands politics section and there you'll see that for the most part our people are SCREWED

mens dept: ^^^^

He's right and you are wrong

What exactly qualifies you to be an arbiter? Unless you can address my points one by one, I'd advise you to shut it.

Look, just check out the threads on Nairalands politics section and there you'll see that for the most part our people are SCREWED

I wouldn't take too seriously what these internet warriors post. In real life many of them are wonderful guys who wouldn't hurt a fly.

The poster is a really funny guy. He's obviously in the UK. He's complaining that Africans are ''not innovative enough to recreate their food to attract Europeans''.

But he is right there in the heart of Europe. What the hell is stopping HIM from doing it?

What HE CANNOT OR WILL NOT DO, he is blaming black people for.

Mr poster, how is it the ''the black man's fault'' that you cannot put your money where your mouth is (excuse the pun) and practice what you preach?

May I playback your race-based game on you?

''An Asian or white man, having noticed his nation's cuisine is not in demand by the public, would swiftly begin creating new exciting recipes with great presentation, to corner the waiting market. He wouldn't go on his national online forum to lament the death of his race like an idio.t.''

odumorun 1: Nothing seems to provoke fury, indeed unbridled rage on this website and across the land more than when some prominent Nigerian goes abroad and criticises the brazenly obvious ills in our society. The response always revolves around the excuse that we should not wash our dirty linen in public, Americans and westerners don’t do the same etc etc.

This is more than people with something to hide not wanting exposure where they can’t use their powers of coercion and manipulation to conceal their crimes, as many otherwise innocent Nigerians tend to join in the chorus of hate towards anybody who dare says outside our shores the reality most people endure in it. There is something deep rooted in the African mindset that seems to abhor facing up to reality, a deeply embedded moral cowardice to be seen in offices, business and families in our society that accepts any condition no matter how bad, how humiliating as long as we can look good to outsiders.


People who struggle to feed their families, will never be short of money to buy clothes for the next party, men who can’t pay their kids school fees but will always find money to upgrade their mobile phones regardless of the expense, even when the replaced ones are perfectly functional. The disease affects even the Diaspora, Not a few Africans drive the flashiest cars yet head for the economy shelves of the big supermarkets for their groceries. There are families (from Africa in Europe) who ration the sugar for their families, but will never be seen without the latest designer clothes outside their front doors. There are people whose kids will never be seen without the latest computer gadgets but who shovel the cheapest, unhealthiest food down their throats to ‘save costs’

On any high street in the UK for instance many small Asian businessmen will be mistaken for labourers at first sight. The dress simply but most of their businesses are worth millions and have endured for decades. African businessmen on the same streets dress like kings and the average life span of their businesses tend to range from 4 – 5 years.


Why are we so obsessed with outward appearance, even when it’s not backed by any internal substance? The mindset of an Asian or western businessman is hard work, enterprise, risk taking and innovation. In Africa or amongst Africans, business means luxury, enterprise is equated with elegance. So profit is rarely re-invested, it is immediately spent on conspicuous consumption. So even when the businesses don’t collapse, they don’t expand. There is no drive to innovate, to take risks. The ultimate aim is to look the part. ‘Ah that man is a business man he has a new Lexus’. Not that man is a businessman; he opened a shop 2 years ago now he has 7. In Europe every ethnic group has produced restaurants that have prospered by conquering the western palate, except Africans. Go to any Chinese restaurant anywhere in Europe and most people there will be Caucasian, not Chinese. Go to any African restaurant and you will struggle to see a non black face.

What is the reason; it’s not as if our food is not tasty. Again it is a cowardly desire not to take risks, to innovate. The Chinese, Indian, Arab and Thai menu has evolved. The African menu has not. We still eat the same way our forebears did 200 hundred years ago in a radically changed environment. Our food has not changed – it is still the same old format – a heavy cereal with a separate stew. Eba, iyan etc. But these foods were created for a period that has been largely bypassed at least in the west. Our foods were created at a time when most people worked on the farms, hard punishing labour requiring foods heavy in carbohydrates, to burn off to release energy. Now many people work in offices – having eba or iyan at lunch means you won’t be productive when you return to your desk, because the work does not require you to burn off energy as our ancestors did. So we fall asleep at our desks. How can such a menu attract foreigners? But still we refuse to change because of a fear of risk taking allied to the desperation to keep up appearances


It is the same with the way we live. We have some of the most beautiful apartments in the world (lets leave aside the fact that most of the money used to build them was stolen). Compared to many luxury apartments in other parts of the world, they look good. However go inside and you find shoddy finishes, poor coordination, tasteless furnishing, and a lack of real refinement, which in the minds of the African bourgeois and aspiring classes means big, not necessarily brilliant. . In the homes of the wealthy Europeans or Asians the homes might not look that great from outside – but enter inside its another world, Persian rugs, old antiques, sculptures etc. A sense of real taste and culture. Why are we so shallow? We delude ourselves that we know how to live, yet we in reality don’t know how to even enjoy the life we pretend to love so much. We attend parties that we don’t enjoy, parties were we sit staring for most of the time like beheaded goats because we don’t want to do anything wrong, to draw attention to ourselves for the wrong reasons to look bad lojuagbo

Rich westerners have a love of high art, paintings, and exquisite carvings. I can count the number of times I have seen Africans in museums admiring the finest creations of human civilisation anywhere in the world. We prefer shopping - nothing wrong with that – but how many of the things that we buy can we produce. We buy the latest multimedia gadgets, the finest electronics, yet we can’t build a factory to produce simple radios at a technical a level achieved in other parts of the world 100 years ago.


In our families the problem is the same. There is a problem – take the easy way out blame everybody, so nobody is offended including whoever has committed the offence. We call that wisdom. Of course there are times when both parties could be at fault. But it also possible that one person is at fault, but you will struggle to find a family on this continent that will not seek to share the blame around, ostensibly to reach a compromise but in reality so they can remain on good terms with both parties or at least the offending one in a society where very principle is available for compromise, where standards exist on nothing where anybody who takes a clear stance on anything is immediately dismissed as mad, extreme etc. A man has slept with his house girl, ok blame the man, but also the woman for not putting enough salt in the food tempting the man to sleep with another woman!! A woman stabbed her husband; ok blame the woman, but also the man for not running away fast enough!!!- We are all to blame, so nobody is to blame; we are all responsible so nobody is responsible. All Nigerians are corrupt so don’t blame the government. Leadership has power and privilege but not responsibility and accountability. The government is ‘trying’ ‘they are trying’. What is the point of trying without succeeding? A society of endless compromises where the aim as always is to keep a clean front to outsiders for a home rotting and putrefying inside.


When we end up dying it is the same people screaming that we should not expose our ills to outsiders who will demand immediate outside medical intervention.


We condemn people for going to the west to criticise what we all know is true, trying to silence them. Yet when the problem, because it has not been treated, explodes, it is the same people who now insist we don’t tell the world our problems (problems the foreigners are far more aware of than we are – where is the stolen money kept UBA Ikeja?) it is these same people who will demand for armed western intervention to save their skins and their stolen property

Once is a long while, one comes across a post in Nairaland that is so brilliant that one forgets (even if for a short while) all the junks oozing out of this website ostensibly from fools, half witted scoundrels, and outright nincompoops.
This piece is so brilliant I can hang my hat on it.
Kudos OP.

@Rossike, you shouldn't have taken the OP to the laundry so quickly. What you should have done was to ask what he has ever done or is presently doing (just one would suffice) to mitigate 'the brazenly obvious ills in our society'.
@OP, the bolded is actually directed to you.

careytommy: @Rossike, you shouldn't have taken the OP to the laundry so quickly. What you should have done was to ask what he has ever done or is presently doing (just one would suffice) to mitigate 'the brazenly obvious ills in our society'.
@OP, the bolded is actually directed to you.

Nice try, but as long as he pays his taxes regularly and obeys the laws of the land, he is doing more than tens of millions of Nigerians who dodge tax and utility bills are doing.

careytommy: @Rossike, you shouldn't have taken the OP to the laundry so quickly. What you should have done was to ask what he has ever done or is presently doing (just one would suffice) to mitigate 'the brazenly obvious ills in our society'.
@OP, the bolded is actually directed to you.

I strongly agree, I dislike people that sit far away and condemn, instead of trying to profer solutions and ideas to better situations. Its like sitting far away and condeming soldiers fighting in a war front. Why complain about situations you plan on doing nothing about?? @OP. Be the change you wish to see.

ROSSIKE: The poster is a really funny guy. He's obviously in the UK. He's complaining that Africans are ''not innovative enough to recreate their food to attract Europeans''.

But he is right there in the heart of Europe. What the hell is stopping HIM from doing it?

What HE CANNOT OR WILL NOT DO, he is blaming black people for.

Mr poster, how is it the ''the black man's fault'' that you cannot put your money where your mouth is (excuse the pun) and practice what you preach?

May I playback your race-based game on you?

''An Asian or white man, having noticed his nation's cuisine is not in demand by the public, would swiftly begin creating new exciting recipes with great presentation, to corner the waiting market. He wouldn't go on his national online forum to lament the death of his race like an idio.t.''

Why should he 'recreate his food to attract more clientele' if he is not in the restaurant business? For all you know, he could be an Engineer, doctor, lawyer. You remind me of those daft people that always charge critics of politicians to 'go enter Politics if you think it is easy' forgetting that if every Engineer and doctor downs tools and enter Politics, the nation will collapse.

Please put more thought into your critiques next time.

The OP has a message to pass and I'd say he's done it brilliantly. Unfortunately for you, you never could see the forest for the trees and so instead of focusing on the meat of the matter, you veer off as usual into an inquest on if the OP loves 'oyibo' too much.

odumorun 1: Nothing seems to provoke fury, indeed unbridled rage on this website and across the land more than when some prominent Nigerian goes abroad and criticises the brazenly obvious ills in our society. The response always revolves around the excuse that we should not wash our dirty linen in public, Americans and westerners don’t do the same etc etc.

This is more than people with something to hide not wanting exposure where they can’t use their powers of coercion and manipulation to conceal their crimes, as many otherwise innocent Nigerians tend to join in the chorus of hate towards anybody who dare says outside our shores the reality most people endure in it. There is something deep rooted in the African mindset that seems to abhor facing up to reality, a deeply embedded moral cowardice to be seen in offices, business and families in our society that accepts any condition no matter how bad, how humiliating as long as we can look good to outsiders.


People who struggle to feed their families, will never be short of money to buy clothes for the next party, men who can’t pay their kids school fees but will always find money to upgrade their mobile phones regardless of the expense, even when the replaced ones are perfectly functional. The disease affects even the Diaspora, Not a few Africans drive the flashiest cars yet head for the economy shelves of the big supermarkets for their groceries. There are families (from Africa in Europe) who ration the sugar for their families, but will never be seen without the latest designer clothes outside their front doors. There are people whose kids will never be seen without the latest computer gadgets but who shovel the cheapest, unhealthiest food down their throats to ‘save costs’

On any high street in the UK for instance many small Asian businessmen will be mistaken for labourers at first sight. The dress simply but most of their businesses are worth millions and have endured for decades. African businessmen on the same streets dress like kings and the average life span of their businesses tend to range from 4 – 5 years.


Why are we so obsessed with outward appearance, even when it’s not backed by any internal substance? The mindset of an Asian or western businessman is hard work, enterprise, risk taking and innovation. In Africa or amongst Africans, business means luxury, enterprise is equated with elegance. So profit is rarely re-invested, it is immediately spent on conspicuous consumption. So even when the businesses don’t collapse, they don’t expand. There is no drive to innovate, to take risks. The ultimate aim is to look the part. ‘Ah that man is a business man he has a new Lexus’. Not that man is a businessman; he opened a shop 2 years ago now he has 7. In Europe every ethnic group has produced restaurants that have prospered by conquering the western palate, except Africans. Go to any Chinese restaurant anywhere in Europe and most people there will be Caucasian, not Chinese. Go to any African restaurant and you will struggle to see a non black face.

What is the reason; it’s not as if our food is not tasty. Again it is a cowardly desire not to take risks, to innovate. The Chinese, Indian, Arab and Thai menu has evolved. The African menu has not. We still eat the same way our forebears did 200 hundred years ago in a radically changed environment. Our food has not changed – it is still the same old format – a heavy cereal with a separate stew. Eba, iyan etc. But these foods were created for a period that has been largely bypassed at least in the west. Our foods were created at a time when most people worked on the farms, hard punishing labour requiring foods heavy in carbohydrates, to burn off to release energy. Now many people work in offices – having eba or iyan at lunch means you won’t be productive when you return to your desk, because the work does not require you to burn off energy as our ancestors did. So we fall asleep at our desks. How can such a menu attract foreigners? But still we refuse to change because of a fear of risk taking allied to the desperation to keep up appearances


It is the same with the way we live. We have some of the most beautiful apartments in the world (lets leave aside the fact that most of the money used to build them was stolen). Compared to many luxury apartments in other parts of the world, they look good. However go inside and you find shoddy finishes, poor coordination, tasteless furnishing, and a lack of real refinement, which in the minds of the African bourgeois and aspiring classes means big, not necessarily brilliant. . In the homes of the wealthy Europeans or Asians the homes might not look that great from outside – but enter inside its another world, Persian rugs, old antiques, sculptures etc. A sense of real taste and culture. Why are we so shallow? We delude ourselves that we know how to live, yet we in reality don’t know how to even enjoy the life we pretend to love so much. We attend parties that we don’t enjoy, parties were we sit staring for most of the time like beheaded goats because we don’t want to do anything wrong, to draw attention to ourselves for the wrong reasons to look bad lojuagbo

Rich westerners have a love of high art, paintings, and exquisite carvings. I can count the number of times I have seen Africans in museums admiring the finest creations of human civilisation anywhere in the world. We prefer shopping - nothing wrong with that – but how many of the things that we buy can we produce. We buy the latest multimedia gadgets, the finest electronics, yet we can’t build a factory to produce simple radios at a technical a level achieved in other parts of the world 100 years ago.


In our families the problem is the same. There is a problem – take the easy way out blame everybody, so nobody is offended including whoever has committed the offence. We call that wisdom. Of course there are times when both parties could be at fault. But it also possible that one person is at fault, but you will struggle to find a family on this continent that will not seek to share the blame around, ostensibly to reach a compromise but in reality so they can remain on good terms with both parties or at least the offending one in a society where very principle is available for compromise, where standards exist on nothing where anybody who takes a clear stance on anything is immediately dismissed as mad, extreme etc. A man has slept with his house girl, ok blame the man, but also the woman for not putting enough salt in the food tempting the man to sleep with another woman!! A woman stabbed her husband; ok blame the woman, but also the man for not running away fast enough!!!- We are all to blame, so nobody is to blame; we are all responsible so nobody is responsible. All Nigerians are corrupt so don’t blame the government. Leadership has power and privilege but not responsibility and accountability. The government is ‘trying’ ‘they are trying’. What is the point of trying without succeeding? A society of endless compromises where the aim as always is to keep a clean front to outsiders for a home rotting and putrefying inside.


When we end up dying it is the same people screaming that we should not expose our ills to outsiders who will demand immediate outside medical intervention.


We condemn people for going to the west to criticise what we all know is true, trying to silence them. Yet when the problem, because it has not been treated, explodes, it is the same people who now insist we don’t tell the world our problems (problems the foreigners are far more aware of than we are – where is the stolen money kept UBA Ikeja?) it is these same people who will demand for armed western intervention to save their skins and their stolen property

Most Nigerians living abroad need to be forced to take and pass citizenship exams every year - including the writer of this long piece of crap. In fact any Nigerian traveling abroad ought to be made to take citizenship lessons before leaving the country. This way they won't remain the destructive caterpillars inside of and eating up the vegetable.

thelonestranger:

Most Nigerians living abroad need to be forced to take and pass citizenship exams every year - including the writer of this long piece of crap. In fact any Nigerian traveling abroad ought to be made to take citizenship lessons before leaving the country. This way they won't remain the destructive caterpillars inside of and eating up the vegetable.

As a Nigerian living in Nigeria, I make bold to say most Nigerians living in Nigeria ought to take common sense lessons as they are the architects of our collective failure. If we had common sense, there would be no reason why the same party that has ruined Nigeria since 1999 keeps getting voted in. There would be no reason why people would avoid taxes and fail to pay utility bills. There would be no reason why folks are less concerned about leaving a better Nigeria as a legacy for their Children and more concerned about how outsiders perceive them.

I laugh at the idea of 'citizenship lessons'. How many good citizens do we have in Nigeria? Even the members of the FG's FEC that travel overseas for medical treatment yet fail to improve our healthcare, what kind of citizens are these? Our fat, corrupt and corpulent Senators, are these the patriots you refer to? The oil bunkerers, the political assassins, the corrupt market women?

You are here complaining about patriotism meanwhile since 1999 your democratically elected Government has supervised a severe rot in our educational sector that will mean your Nation will remain a technologically inferior one for decades to come. Hilarious

texazzpete:

As a Nigerian living in Nigeria, I make bold to say most Nigerians living in Nigeria ought to take common sense lessons as they are the architects of our collective failure. If we had common sense, there would be no reason why the same party that has ruined Nigeria since 1999 keeps getting voted in. There would be no reason why people would avoid taxes and fail to pay utility bills. There would be no reason why folks are less concerned about leaving a better Nigeria as a legacy for their Children and more concerned about how outsiders perceive them.

I laugh at the idea of 'citizenship lessons'. How many good citizens do we have in Nigeria? Even the members of the FG's FEC that travel overseas for medical treatment yet fail to improve our healthcare, what kind of citizens are these? Our fat, corrupt and corpulent Senators, are these the patriots you refer to? The oil bunkerers, the political assassins, the corrupt market women?

You are here complaining about patriotism meanwhile since 1999 your democratically elected Government has supervised a severe rot in our educational sector that will mean your Nation will remain a technologically inferior one for decades to come. Hilarious

Touche!

texazzpete:

Why should he 'recreate his food to attract more clientele' if he is not in the restaurant business?

If he is not in the restaurant business then he has no business attacking those who work in that business. Does he know what they go through? How does he know they haven't tried jazzing up fufu and egusi to no avail?

For all you know, he could be an Engineer, doctor, lawyer.

So why has he not undertaken any ground breaking research in his field? He is attacking restauranteurs. What has HE done in his own field to stand out?

The OP has a message to pass and I'd say he's done it brilliantly.

What message? His rant is merely his wretched inferiority complex couched in an incoherent set of racial smears against black people based on ZERO RESEARCH. I'm sure you and the op are way too ignorant to know that Indians are actually poorer than Africans despite their vast resources:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/india-far-poorer-than-africa-new-measure-shows/story-e6frg6so-1225891801078

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-07-13/news/27570255_1_madhya-pradesh-mpi-oxford-poverty

''Africa is poor but India is poorer. Africans are poor people but Indians are poorer than Africans. Africa is a poor continent but India as a country is far poorer than the poorest African countries combined, and poverty is worse in India not just in number but also in intensity.

Recent studies show that Africa is far better than India in terms of economic and social development. Recent studies also show that taking the population size, human development, poverty levels, education, and everything else into consideration, there are more poor people in India than in Africa and that the poverty of the poor in India is far greater than the poverty of the poor in Africa. To put it in simple terms, Recent studies show that life in Africa is far better than life in India and that Indians are living in worse conditions than Africans which means that Indians are poorer than Africans not only in the number but also in intensity.''

http://www.africaw.com/forum/f2/india-is-far-poorer-than-africa-in-intensity-t2294/


The average Indian is worse off than the average African.

India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, are hotbeds of corruption, illiteracy and poverty.

Yet I haven't seen their people habitually insulting their race the way some of these colonized idiots who call themselves Africans do.

The op, brainwashed to the hilt and steeped in colonial-taught colour-based hierarchies, is full of praise for those same Indians and Pakis, and whites whom he virtually regards as gods, despite their numerous atrocities, with Africans his sole target for racial attacks. I think he lacks proper home training and needs a healthy dose of Malcolm X.

ROSSIKE:

I have NEVER seen that particular response by forumers to outside criticism which you claim to be common. Care to point us to a few links?




Do you personally know of such people? Care to share the story? I don't know anyone who struggles to feed their kids but always buys the latest clothes for parties.



Again, I know of no such Nigerians. If they exist, they must be very few. You do realise that majority of mobile phones in Nigeria are basic phones?



More baseless innuendo..



Perhaps you saw a man trying to cut down on the diabetes risk in his family and mistook his sugar aversion for miserliness? Sugar costs next to nothing in western nations.



More baseless and stupid innuendo. Asians have settled in the UK since the 1950s. Africans only began to settle there in large number in the 1990s, so Asians have longer established businesses. As for dress styles, it all depends on the nature of the business. Asian businesses are mostly shop and warehouse based, while African businesses tend to be in services like estate agency, accountancy, law, international business etc, for which you need to dress corporate.




This is all so much innuendo based on your in-built racial bias and prejudice. Essentially, racist smears with nothing founded on any statistics or research. How can YOU stand in one place and see all these things that ''black people'' supposedly do, with zero empirical research?

All you're doing is spewing your self-loathing based on racial prejudice. The average white man today in America and Europe is sinking in debt owing to years of credit-fuelled dinner parties, luxury trips to Ibiza, Miami, large houses and cars they can't afford. Repossessions are at an all-time high, as is their suicide rate following multiple business and career failures. Millions were living beyond their means, and this was what led to the global financial crisis, from which the world is yet to recover!

Yet, not one of you self loathing noisemakers has ever ONCE attacked whites for their addiction to ''luxury and conspicuous consumption''. It is only blacks that you see to insult.




Ah.. The white man doesn't wish to eat fufu and okro with cowfoot, so it must be the black man's fault.

Why do I even bother with you Why don't YOU set up a restaurant in Europe and attract their custom? Since it's an area that Africans have 'failed' in, that must be a goldmine for a sharp guy like you who 'knows how'. So why haven't you cleaned up the profits?




Your grammar is tooooooooo much. WHAT IS STOPPING YOU MR MAN?

Why don't YOU take it to 'the next level'? You are a bigger part of the 'African problem' than you realise. Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk. We are all experts at identifying ''the problem with the black man''. OYA HELP SOLVE IT BY STARTING YOUR OWN INNOVATIVE RESTAURANT. THAT IS HOW YOU MAKE A STATEMENT. NOT BY COMING HERE TO INSULT YOUR SENIOR BROTHERS.




Do you have any proof of that or is that just another beer parlour allegation?



Out of the several million luxurious homes in Nigeria, how many have you personally been in? 5? 10? 100? Can't you see you're an ignorant bozo with nothing better to do than come in here to insult his elders?



You are a white worshipping clown. So if I don't care for European antique furniture it means I have poor taste? If I prefer oil paintings to sculpture it means I'm not as refined as an Asian? If I prefer African masks to Picasso and Rembrandt, I'm not sophisticated?

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.




You expect to see as many Africans in European museums as the white population? Why exactly should Africans be especially interested in European museums? We have our museums in Nigeria. When you visit them (which you haven't) you will see blacks there admiring OUR ancient works.

Oh, and rich Nigerians love their art by the way, especially Nigerian art, and think nothing of paying millions of naira for a work of art. You just haven't met too many of them so you wouldn't know.



Nobody buys ''simple radios'' any more, so it would be foolhardy setting up a factory for that. We do have local firms that manufacture motor vehicles and computers though, like INNOSON and Zinox. Ever heard of them?

Thought not.

Yes , I had to quote this: GBAM. Thanks 4 your time. So much white wannabe here, imagine an African saying we shouldn't eat our food anymore. Tufiakwa.op u are disgusting

Rossikk:

If he is not in the restaurant business then he has no business attacking those who work in that business. Does he know what they go through? How does he know they haven't tried jazzing up fufu and egusi to no avail?

I'd love to hear your reaction if your mechanic or plumber tells you to refrain from criticizing his work since you aren't a mechanic.
I know i reserve the right to criticize my tailor for a poor bit of work without being told to go and learn how to sew first!

Rossikk:

So why has he not undertaken any ground breaking research in his field? He is attacking restauranteurs. What has HE done in his own field to stand out?

So in your opinion, the thousands of medical doctors in Nigeria are useless and aren't doing a good job since you haven't seen any 'ground breaking research' from them, right?

texazzpete:

I'd love to hear your reaction if your mechanic or plumber tells you to refrain from criticizing his work since you aren't a mechanic.
I know i reserve the right to criticize my tailor for a poor bit of work without being told to go and learn how to sew first!



So in your opinion, the thousands of medical doctors in Nigeria are useless and aren't doing a good job since you haven't seen any 'ground breaking research' from them, right?

Terrible analogies. The doctors are doing ok by me. I haven't demanded that they go beyond their duties.. It is the op that's making demands of restaurant owners to go beyond theirs. Question is, how has the op gone the extra mile in his own field, before criticising others?

CAMEROONPRIDE: Yes , I had to quote this: GBAM. Thanks 4 your time. So much white wannabe here, imagine an African saying we shouldn't eat our food anymore. Tufiakwa.op u are disgusting

Please don't mind him. I think he's lived overseas too long. You know if you stay there too long, enduring 2nd class status, you tend to believe after a while that you're truly 2nd class. We should actually feel pity for him, because he's psychologically damaged. Hopefully it's not irreversible.

odumorun 1:



In our families the problem is the same. There is a problem – take the easy way out blame everybody, so nobody is offended including whoever has committed the offence. We call that wisdom. Of course there are times when both parties could be at fault. But it also possible that one person is at fault, but you will struggle to find a family on this continent that will not seek to share the blame around, ostensibly to reach a compromise but in reality so they can remain on good terms with both parties or at least the offending one in a society where very principle is available for compromise, where standards exist on nothing where anybody who takes a clear stance on anything is immediately dismissed as mad, extreme etc. A man has slept with his house girl, ok blame the man, but also the woman for not putting enough salt in the food tempting the man to sleep with another woman!! A woman stabbed her husband; ok blame the woman, but also the man for not running away fast enough!!!- We are all to blame, so nobody is to blame; we are all responsible so nobody is responsible. All Nigerians are corrupt so don’t blame the government. Leadership has power and privilege but not responsibility and accountability. The government is ‘trying’ ‘they are trying’. What is the point of trying without succeeding? A society of endless compromises where the aim as always is to keep a clean front to outsiders for a home rotting and putrefying inside.

This is one attitude I hate entirely that Nigerians are so fond of.

Rossikk: Terrible analogies. The doctors are doing ok by me. I haven't demanded that they go beyond their duties.. It is the op that's making demands of restaurant owners to go beyond theirs. Question is, how has the op gone the extra mile in his own field, before criticising others?

I'd say he's asking why they haven't really evolved much to meet the times and attract new clientele.

I'd like to say I appreciate your viewpoints even though we differ significantly and I respect that your arguments have remained very civil even though I have not always shown you such courtesy in the past.

I would like to debate you vigorously someday. You present a unique conundrum for me...how one man can so vigorously defend the black race and yet still remain a supporter of this ruinous Federal Government

texazzpete:
You present a unique conundrum for me...how one man can so vigorously defend the black race and yet still remain a supporter of this ruinous Federal Government

Crack!

Crack is a very powerful, mind altering drug.

texazzpete:

I'd say he's asking why they haven't really evolved much to meet the times and attract new clientele.

I'd like to say I appreciate your viewpoints even though we differ significantly and I respect that your arguments have remained very civil even though I have not always shown you such courtesy in the past.

I would like to debate you vigorously someday. You present a unique conundrum for me...how one man can so vigorously defend the black race and yet still remain a supporter of this ruinous Federal Government

You mean this "ruinous" federal govt that has doubled power output in two years, renovated 15 national airports, got the trains working again after 20 years of inactivity, rehabilitated federal roads across the country, fixed the banking sector, transformed telecommunications, and overseen an exploding middle class in an economy that's growing at 7.5per cent a year? Of course they deserve support. Who are the alternative 'saints' you have in mind to take their place?

mens dept:

This is actually the best post of the year till date.

Actually it's among the worst. Not that a plantation slaveboy like you would notice.

You are spot on in your entirety but of course those "What's my business" local monkeys are gonna downplay this your gospel truth

Save your racist insults for your parents and siblings, you lecherous child rap.ist.

When the fuel scarcity hit, when you thought people were going to behave like EVERYONE else has done worldwide in that situation (REVOLT and Overthrow the powers that be) they turned the whole thing into a party.

Name the ''everyone'' that has revolted ''worldwide''. Ignorant mongoose that cannot see beyond his filthy nose talking about ''the world''.

Then we will throw Nollywood party and take pictures to put on top Nairaland abi facebook, when those movies are worse than a Freshman Media major's production at University of Florda.

Is the university of Florida's movie industry the third largest in the world, attracting millions of fans and worth at last count $800 million, like Nollywood? If not, then shut your stinking mouth and pay respect.

By the way, no one is copying us, not our movies, not our music, not our way of speaking, not our cities, and frankly, hardly anything.

If you left your ignorant little world and traveled around Africa and the Caribbean you would see that in fact that the world ARE copying Nigerians' way of speaking, are loving our music, and are thoroughly addicted to our movies.

But of course, being a dunderhead goat with foam for brains, drowning in self hate and complex, you're not expected to know any of this.

A lot of interesting responses to my original post and as expected a lot of twaddle and meaningless abuse

The abuse tends to centre on the fact that any African who points out the glaring wrongs in our society or the black race as a whole is a self hating African sufering from inferiority complex. A bit like any Jewish person criticising the endless crimes of the state of israel being dubbed a self hating Jew.

The post I originally made, for the discerning was clearly a critique not of the common or struggling African, it was a critique of what would undoubtedly go down in history as the least productive and most visionless ruling elite in Human history - The African ruling class and many members of the aspiring (or educated middle class) who ape their mannersims and their lifestyle.

With the usual intellectual indolence common to the 'educated' African, many have accussed me of just 'talking' 'not doing anything about it' etc etc. I plead guilty. You have to diagnose a problem before you profer solutions to it. You have to study a difficulty and come up with an idea of action, before you start to solve it. Europrean democracy arose out of years of study, debate and analysis before it bcame a practical reality in these societies. Debate is important because it clarifies ideas and without ideas no societty can move forward.

The most intricate civil engineering structures start on the drawing board. My original post was a critique of the lack of spirit, courage and character of the ruling elite of the continent, whose values, ideas (or lack of them) are ultimately the values of the societies they misrule.

One example is this class's fear of 'conflict' and love of compromise which I touched on in the original article. The most advanced societies in the world have political syustems based on robust conflict - not physical, but the ruthless conflict of ideas. Their political system actively promote this form of politics ideologically polarised conflict because they learned that it is only conflict that moves socieites forward.

Hence there is a healthy lack of respect and deference for authority in all its ramifications. Take a look at the Uk, where the Prime Minister of the country is regularly and publicly attacked and ridiculed in the house of parliament. In the US where the president is heckled in congress and torn to shreds on radio shows. Compare this to Africa where the presidents even when elected are treated with excessive deference, is not forced to face forensic questioning on public TV, are not subjected to harsh criticism in the public domain. It is this culture, a culture of resistance, a culture where any authority which does not relfect the peoples wish is open to direct political revolt that has forced these socities to move forward.

The excessive deference to 'elders' in Africa is a key obstacle to development and not just in Government, also in the academia, busiess world and even in families. It does not create the necessary environment - based on a healthy conflict of ideas for society to develop. About 12 years ago an undergraduate student in the US dreamed up a way to connect everybody using an internet to each other. Many of his professors thought he was mad, but they still allowed him continue with his research. The result was the phenomenon of facebook. Would max Zuckerburg have created what he did if he was a Nigerian. If he had criticised as he did his proffessors would we not have torn him down, ripped him to shreds for 'challenging his elders.

Bill gates and Steve Jobs are other names that come to mind men who chaged the way we live because they were in a society that inspite of all its faults gives the room for dissidents, allows them to thrive without being abused, victimised and insulted. The ideas that elders have some resipository of wisdom younger people lack is antedulivian nonesense and is one of the main reasons the African continent which moe than any other continent places an inordinate amount of regard on the suppossed importance of age has remained mired in backwardness. Our grandfathers beleived in black magic , our fathers believed in black magic and we the current generattion are passing the same nonesense to our children and we wonder why we are backward. How can we build roads, dams and bridges when many of us still think a man can dissapear in one place and reappear in a nother. True elders have experience, more than that of younger people. But a man who has been defeated by his experience, and our elders have been defeated by theirs which is why we are where we are today, men who are defated by theri experience are far more dangerous than those without any experience at all.

I mremember during the June 12 crisis, when nthe youths went into the street to chalenge the dictatorship. Our elders scoffed at us saying civilians could not hope to defeat armed soldiers. Obviously looking at the situation through the prism of their own experience of decades of oppression by the military. The youths ignored them that is why Babangida is not in power today but forced to waste his time plotting to return there. The youths struggled, they fought back, they refused to be weighed down by the bagage of experience, they belived. nad because of that we have had an uninterupted period 14 years of civilian rule. True its not the best but if we could elect an incompetent like goodluck, one day we will elect a competent person. Its al a matter of time, but we are on the right path. Only because we refused to believe in the nonesense told us by our elders. defeated men with broken spirits

More important than experince is courgae, audacity, and the willingess to take risks in search of a dream. That starts with ideas. Europe strted its development when the old ancient class, the feudal class, whose stupidity, superstition, cultural backwardness, corruption, immorality, and reactionary social views are a carbon copy of the current African ruling elite that after 60 years of independence has failed to induisttrialise and unify the continent forcing it to survive by seling raw materials to the advanced world.

My critique of the African elite clearly touched a few nerves on this site. Good. You don't like the medicine, expect a doub le dose.


WHO AM I TO CRITICISE OTHERS = WHAT HAVE I DONE FOR NIGERIA

Another slur has been the insult that since I am just another diasporean Nigerian, doing nothing fo the country, I have no right to criticise those ruling it. Rubbish. If you take a politicl post it means you have to be ready to be criticised by anyone. You don't like it stay out of politics. Can't take the heat don't enter into politics.

This is an anonymous site as it should be since that allows the free exchange of ideas without personalities getting in the way. Hence there will be no need to reveal my identity. However the lazy assumption that everybody posting on this board has never done anything fo the country is absurd. First I have nver stolen public money so thats a start. I am not a thief.

But then more seriously I spent the better part of my youth and young adulthood before moving abroad fighting in Nigeria for change. For 10 years In the student movement, the labour movement and the civil rights movement, working as a student activist, trade union organiser and civil rights movement I fought the darknes of dictatorhip, suffering expulsion, death threats, arresst, torture and penury. After the cancellation of the June 12 election in 1993, when most of the current political class headed either for their beds or Aso rock. I was proud to be a member of a selct few Nigerians organised in the civil rights movement who organised ourselves and openly called on the people to takle to the street to confront the despot sparking the biggest civil uprising in Nigerian history. I did not do it for publicity or fame or money, even I tell you my name most people will probbaly not recognise it. I don't want recognition. I wanted and still want progress for Nigeria. But behind the well known faces of the struggle to improve Nigeria, the great men like gani, Beko etc there were always many of us without whom nothing would have happened, without whom the darkness of military dictatorhip would still have enveloped this land. Some died, a few ran mad, many ended up in anonymous and crushing poverty. But the fact that you and others can write what you like on a public board like this without fear was down to their sacrifice.

I say this not because i want plaudits - as i said i won't reveal my name. I say it because when you bandy cheap insults about on this board and try and avoid questions by insulting people who post here just because their love for the country makes them sepnd time writing about its problems when they could as well be at a party - you don't really know who you are talking to.

Everybody who spends time on this board posting about our countries problems when they could be sp0ending that time doing something else is contributing to the countries progress. It miht look like nothing, but they could as well have spoent their time on th Manchester supporters website, or some pornography website, or on e-bay. I run internet businesses - I don't make money from posting here - I could as wel be on sites where i could. Like others i come here because I love the country and want it to progress. Postrers here are not receiving any money by posting here. They do so because they love the country and while it might seem just words to you one day you wil find that when this country does move forward, it is some of the people talking about it on this board who will be in the vabnguard. Do you know why, because they have beeen thinking about it, that is why they post on it. So show some respect

odumorun 1:


The excessive deference to 'elders' in Africa is a key obstacle to development and not just in Government, also in the academia, busiess world and even in families. It does not create the necessary environment - based on a healthy conflict of ideas for society to develop. About 12 years ago an undergraduate student in the US dreamed up a way to connect everybody using an internet to each other. Many of his professors thought he was mad, but they still allowed him continue with his research. The result was the phenomenon of facebook. Would max Zuckerburg have created what he did if he was a Nigerian. If he had criticised as he did his proffessors would we not have torn him down, ripped him to shreds for 'challenging his elders.

lol, couldn't agree more.

its weird, I once worked in some gov company and approached a man and said "hello, PLEASE can you tell me where the accounting department is?" and behold he just erupted, saying "you can't even greet". I just hissed right in his face and walked away, I am sure he was sooo surprised (please do not try this if u really Luv your job, lol).

My point here is that in another country were I worked the statement I made "hello, PLEASE can you tell me where the accounting department is?" would have come of as pleasant and respectful, but to this mighty "elder" it was just too rude to not have greeted first and that to him was enough to erupt in a work environment, smh!

Never argue with fools. Let a fooleesh man continue in his ignorance until he destroys himself. The most dangerous thing is to argue with a man who thinks he knows. Nigeria has failed in every aspect of everything. I have colleagues who leave the country per day for better offer outside; and trust me, they are contributing a hell of a lot to both research and academics over there. Why should we not agree with our failures? The kind of attitude some of us display here shows we have a long way to go. @Op, it will be more honorable to do all u can do within ur own capacity and circle to make 9ja better do not be one of the losers living abroad, as talk, talk and talk do not solve a damn thing.

odumorun 1: A lot of interesting responses to my original post and as expected a lot of twaddle and meaningless abuse

The abuse tends to centre on the fact that any African who points out the glaring wrongs in our society or the black race as a whole is a self hating African sufering from inferiority complex. A bit like any Jewish person criticising the endless crimes of the state of israel being dubbed a self hating Jew.

The post I originally made, for the discerning was clearly a critique not of the common or struggling African, it was a critique of what would undoubtedly go down in history as the least productive and most visionless ruling elite in Human history - The African ruling class and many members of the aspiring (or educated middle class) who ape their mannersims and their lifestyle.

With the usual intellectual indolence common to the 'educated' African, many have accussed me of just 'talking' 'not doing anything about it' etc etc. I plead guilty. You have to diagnose a problem before you profer solutions to it. You have to study a difficulty and come up with an idea of action, before you start to solve it. Europrean democracy arose out of years of study, debate and analysis before it bcame a practical reality in these societies. Debate is important because it clarifies ideas and without ideas no societty can move forward.

The most intricate civil engineering structures start on the drawing board. My original post was a critique of the lack of spirit, courage and character of the ruling elite of the continent, whose values, ideas (or lack of them) are ultimately the values of the societies they misrule.

One example is this class's fear of 'conflict' and love of compromise which I touched on in the original article. The most advanced societies in the world have political syustems based on robust conflict - not physical, but the ruthless conflict of ideas. Their political system actively promote this form of politics ideologically polarised conflict because they learned that it is only conflict that moves socieites forward.

Hence there is a healthy lack of respect and deference for authority in all its ramifications. Take a look at the Uk, where the Prime Minister of the country is regularly and publicly attacked and ridiculed in the house of parliament. In the US where the president is heckled in congress and torn to shreds on radio shows. Compare this to Africa where the presidents even when elected are treated with excessive deference, is not forced to face forensic questioning on public TV, are not subjected to harsh criticism in the public domain. It is this culture, a culture of resistance, a culture where any authority which does not relfect the peoples wish is open to direct political revolt that has forced these socities to move forward.

The excessive deference to 'elders' in Africa is a key obstacle to development and not just in Government, also in the academia, busiess world and even in families. It does not create the necessary environment - based on a healthy conflict of ideas for society to develop. About 12 years ago an undergraduate student in the US dreamed up a way to connect everybody using an internet to each other. Many of his professors thought he was mad, but they still allowed him continue with his research. The result was the phenomenon of facebook. Would max Zuckerburg have created what he did if he was a Nigerian. If he had criticised as he did his proffessors would we not have torn him down, ripped him to shreds for 'challenging his elders.

Bill gates and Steve Jobs are other names that come to mind men who chaged the way we live because they were in a society that inspite of all its faults gives the room for dissidents, allows them to thrive without being abused, victimised and insulted. The ideas that elders have some resipository of wisdom younger people lack is antedulivian nonesense and is one of the main reasons the African continent which moe than any other continent places an inordinate amount of regard on the suppossed importance of age has remained mired in backwardness. Our grandfathers beleived in black magic , our fathers believed in black magic and we the current generattion are passing the same nonesense to our children and we wonder why we are backward. How can we build roads, dams and bridges when many of us still think a man can dissapear in one place and reappear in a nother. True elders have experience, more than that of younger people. But a man who has been defeated by his experience, and our elders have been defeated by theirs which is why we are where we are today, men who are defated by theri experience are far more dangerous than those without any experience at all.

I mremember during the June 12 crisis, when nthe youths went into the street to chalenge the dictatorship. Our elders scoffed at us saying civilians could not hope to defeat armed soldiers. Obviously looking at the situation through the prism of their own experience of decades of oppression by the military. The youths ignored them that is why Babangida is not in power today but forced to waste his time plotting to return there. The youths struggled, they fought back, they refused to be weighed down by the bagage of experience, they belived. nad because of that we have had an uninterupted period 14 years of civilian rule. True its not the best but if we could elect an incompetent like goodluck, one day we will elect a competent person. Its al a matter of time, but we are on the right path. Only because we refused to believe in the nonesense told us by our elders. defeated men with broken spirits

More important than experince is courgae, audacity, and the willingess to take risks in search of a dream. That starts with ideas. Europe strted its development when the old ancient class, the feudal class, whose stupidity, superstition, cultural backwardness, corruption, immorality, and reactionary social views are a carbon copy of the current African ruling elite that after 60 years of independence has failed to induisttrialise and unify the continent forcing it to survive by seling raw materials to the advanced world.

My critique of the African elite clearly touched a few nerves on this site. Good. You don't like the medicine, expect a doub le dose.


WHO AM I TO CRITICISE OTHERS = WHAT HAVE I DONE FOR NIGERIA

Another slur has been the insult that since I am just another diasporean Nigerian, doing nothing fo the country, I have no right to criticise those ruling it. Rubbish. If you take a politicl post it means you have to be ready to be criticised by anyone. You don't like it stay out of politics. Can't take the heat don't enter into politics.

This is an anonymous site as it should be since that allows the free exchange of ideas without personalities getting in the way. Hence there will be no need to reveal my identity. However the lazy assumption that everybody posting on this board has never done anything fo the country is absurd. First I have nver stolen public money so thats a start. I am not a thief.

But then more seriously I spent the better part of my youth and young adulthood before moving abroad fighting in Nigeria for change. For 10 years In the student movement, the labour movement and the civil rights movement, working as a student activist, trade union organiser and civil rights movement I fought the darknes of dictatorhip, suffering expulsion, death threats, arresst, torture and penury. After the cancellation of the June 12 election in 1993, when most of the current political class headed either for their beds or Aso rock. I was proud to be a member of a selct few Nigerians organised in the civil rights movement who organised ourselves and openly called on the people to takle to the street to confront the despot sparking the biggest civil uprising in Nigerian history. I did not do it for publicity or fame or money, even I tell you my name most people will probbaly not recognise it. I don't want recognition. I wanted and still want progress for Nigeria. But behind the well known faces of the struggle to improve Nigeria, the great men like gani, Beko etc there were always many of us without whom nothing would have happened, without whom the darkness of military dictatorhip would still have enveloped this land. Some died, a few ran mad, many ended up in anonymous and crushing poverty. But the fact that you and others can write what you like on a public board like this without fear was down to their sacrifice.

I say this not because i want plaudits - as i said i won't reveal my name. I say it because when you bandy cheap insults about on this board and try and avoid questions by insulting people who post here just because their love for the country makes them sepnd time writing about its problems when they could as well be at a party - you don't really know who you are talking to.

Everybody who spends time on this board posting about our countries problems when they could be sp0ending that time doing something else is contributing to the countries progress. It miht look like nothing, but they could as well have spoent their time on th Manchester supporters website, or some pornography website, or on e-bay. I run internet businesses - I don't make money from posting here - I could as wel be on sites where i could. Like others i come here because I love the country and want it to progress. Postrers here are not receiving any money by posting here. They do so because they love the country and while it might seem just words to you one day you wil find that when this country does move forward, it is some of the people talking about it on this board who will be in the vabnguard. Do you know why, because they have beeen thinking about it, that is why they post on it. So show some respect

Your problem is that all you see about Nigerians and Africans is bad. Get rid of your inferiority complex then come in here and have a proper debate. Your lengthy diatribe in itself is proof of your arrogance. You have been away from Nigeria for many years. There is no way you are in a position to write all this stuff if you have not been following or experiencing the progress the nation has made since the days of Abacha when you fled the country. Return home and contribute your quota instead of sitting abroad and sniffing your nose at Africans and black people. Are you aware that power supply has doubled in the last two years? Are you aware that the railways, abandoned by the military, are now back on track? Are you aware that federal roads are being fixed? Are you aware that telecommunications have been transformed? Are you aware that agriculture is seeing its biggest boom in 30 years? Are you aware that Nigeria is now Africa's no 1 investment destination? Are you aware that the World bank has announced that poverty is REDUCING in Nigeria? Are you aware that annual GDP growth of Nigeria is among the fastest on earth? Are you aware that 10 million Nigerians moved up to middle class status in the last 5 years according to UK private equity firm Actis International? Are you aware that Nigeria now manufactures motor vehicles? Are you aware that we manufacture computers? Are you aware that we are now self sufficient in cement, and have turned a net exporter? Are you aware that there is a construction boom in Nigeria? Are you aware that many states are seeing genuine infrastructural transformation? None of this was the case when you were living in Nigeria. What more do you want? Nigeria to transform to Switzerland in the twinkle of an eye? Like I said, get rid of your arrogance, and get with the program, or STAY OUT and leave us the hell alone.

Rossikk: Your problem is that all you see about Nigerians and Africans is bad. Get rid of your inferiority complex then come in here and have a proper debate. Your lengthy diatribe in itself is proof of your arrogance. You have been away from Nigeria for many years. There is no way you are in a position to write all this stuff if you have not been following or experiencing the progress the nation has made since the days of Abacha when you fled the country. Return home and contribute your quota instead of sitting abroad and sniffing your nose at Africans and black people. Are you aware that power supply has doubled in the last two years? Are you aware that the railways, abandoned by the military, are now back on track? Are you aware that federal roads are being fixed? Are you aware that telecommunications have been transformed? Are you aware that agriculture is seeing its biggest boom in 30 years? Are you aware that Nigeria is now Africa's no 1 investment destination? Are you aware that the World bank has announced that poverty is REDUCING in Nigeria? Are you aware that annual GDP growth of Nigeria is among the fastest on earth? Are you aware that 10 million Nigerians moved up to middle class status in the last 5 years according to UK private equity firm Actis International? Are you aware that Nigeria now manufactures motor vehicles? Are you aware that we manufacture computers? Are you aware that we are now self sufficient in cement, and have turned a net exporter? Are you aware that there is a construction boom in Nigeria? Are you aware that many states are seeing genuine infrastructural transformation? None of this was the case when you were living in Nigeria. What more do you want? Nigeria to transform to Switzerland in the twinkle of an eye? Like I said, get rid of your arrogance, and get with the program, or STAY OUT and leave us the hell alone.

On the one hand people living abroad who criticise Nigeria are accussed of arrogance, of not being in touch with the country. On the other hand foreign bodies, like the ones quoted in the above rant who say the country is rosy are quoted with approval.Who then is suffering from inferiority complex.

In January this year milions of Nigerians took to the streets to protest the removal of subsidy and colapse of living standrds in the country under Goodlucj Johnathan. I would rather beleive those people than I would the World bank and its statisticvs. The only indicator of real econmoic development is the creation of jobs and the impact of infrastructure development on the nlife of the ordinary man. If there is a construction boom in Nigeria, then why are engineers still queuing up for non-existent jobs in Banks. If electricity output has doubled then nobody it sems has bothered to tel the man in the street. I f10 million more people have been uplifted to the middle class can you explain how - to what jobs in what industiries. |If millions of people have ben uplifted to the middle class that will sugest a growing econmoy that would have employed milions of people - pray what are these industries, where are these brand new spanking factories situated.

Let the world bank give the number of people employed in these factories every year.

The argument that a person who has not been back to Nigeria for years canot know what is going on there appears sensible at first sight, but it is a facile, beer parlour slur. I have never been to China yet I know that it is an economic miracle case. So why do i have to go back to Nigeria before I know it is still a basket case. Most people have never been to America, yetb they know it is developed. You don't need to go to Afghanistan to know it is underdeveloped Concrete development not isoalted one off examples of progress or false statistics is what makes a country developed. If I go back to Nigeria as many diasporeans do every year for a holiday or business trip. If you land in the airport and drive al the way to a freinds place in Ikoyi, or VI spend your time being entertained by your hosts all of whom will go out of the way to make you comnfortable (as African hospitality dictates) Then after 2 weeks you will of course return to wherever your base is claiming the country is getting better. The same way if I receive a visitor in London from Nigeria, I won't ration my heating, I won't ration electricity, so clearly many Nigerians return to Nigeria thinking the west is a paradise



Moreover being far from a country might even giver a surer view of its problems. Distance lends perspective. That is why a GPS SAT NAV might give more accurate directions than a road map on the drivers lap. Dunderheads like the twit who wrote the latest rant condemn Nigerians living abroad for criticising the country - but gladly wellcome foreigners who say themaked emperor is in fact dressed to the nines.

The idea that Nigerians living abroad are somehow less qualified to criticise the country than those who remained there is peverse. This argument wil lead to absurd conclusions like that of the intellectualy challenged individual who p-osted here last

MY ARGUMENT
I am not aware of any Nigerian whose father stole public money - who has come abroad. Infact most of those who came abroad are the people without connections without the backing of godfathers without the foundation of stolen public funds.

Hence on that basis the sons of theives who remained in the country because they could live off their fathers ill gotten wealth are better than the sons of people who did not steal, who hjad to go abroad to look for their own opportunities. I am not having a go at people, many of them hardworking who remain in Nigeria. However every and I repeat every Nigerian in the west working in any proffessional job in the west medicine, Pharemacy, Law, engineering would have got thast job on merit. Can you say the same of every Nigerian working in similar capacities in Nigeria.

Most Nigerians living aboraod actually work. The elite in Nigeria, their offsprings and hangers on do not actually work.



.

Rossikk: Your problem is that all you see about Nigerians and Africans is bad. Get rid of your inferiority complex then come in here and have a proper debate. Your lengthy diatribe in itself is proof of your arrogance. You have been away from Nigeria for many years. There is no way you are in a position to write all this stuff if you have not been following or experiencing the progress the nation has made since the days of Abacha when you fled the country. Return home and contribute your quota instead of sitting abroad and sniffing your nose at Africans and black people. Are you aware that power supply has doubled in the last two years? Are you aware that the railways, abandoned by the military, are now back on track? Are you aware that federal roads are being fixed? Are you aware that telecommunications have been transformed? Are you aware that agriculture is seeing its biggest boom in 30 years? Are you aware that Nigeria is now Africa's no 1 investment destination? Are you aware that the World bank has announced that poverty is REDUCING in Nigeria? Are you aware that annual GDP growth of Nigeria is among the fastest on earth? Are you aware that 10 million Nigerians moved up to middle class status in the last 5 years according to UK private equity firm Actis International? Are you aware that Nigeria now manufactures motor vehicles? Are you aware that we manufacture computers? Are you aware that we are now self sufficient in cement, and have turned a net exporter? Are you aware that there is a construction boom in Nigeria? Are you aware that many states are seeing genuine infrastructural transformation? None of this was the case when you were living in Nigeria. What more do you want? Nigeria to transform to Switzerland in the twinkle of an eye? Like I said, get rid of your arrogance, and get with the program, or STAY OUT and leave us the hell alone.

It is amazing how easily outbursts more suited to a beer parlour rant can be as easily passed off as something warranting serious attention.

I'll tgake some of these fallacies one by one

YOU ARE A DIASPOREAN WHO CANT SPEAK ON NIGERIA BECAUSE YOU'VE NOT BEEN THERE FOR A LONG TIME

By the same logic a graduate of Geography from a nigerian University has no business talking about rivers in America because he has not been there. Or perhaps the assumption that a british man living in London knows more about the economy of London than a Kenyan living in nairobi who has never been to london. On the surface it seems sensible. But its not. What if the Kenyan in nairobi actually spends his time studying the economy of London, while the english man in london spends his time exploring the pubs o0f london

DIASPREANS DONT LOVRE NIGERIA AS MUCH AS THE NIGERIANS LIVING THERE.

People don't leave a country because they don't love it. They leavew it because they get better opportunities elsewhere. I have been living abroad for over a decade. I have not come across a single Nigerian working in the west as either a cleaner, taxi driver, doctor, security man Engineer or accountant who has a father or close relative who stole public money in Nigeria. Not one For the simple reason that if they had such connections they would not be working away in a coold strange land for a living

Does that mean the thousands of Nigerians who come from families that have stolen public money, that have got jobs and contracts by conections to those who have stolen public money, does this mean they love Nigeria more because they cam stay there having looted our colective wealth.

IF YOU LIVE ABROAD YOU WORSHIP WHITE PEOPLE IF YOU LIVE IN NIGERIA YOU BELEIVE IN BLACK PEOPLE

On the contrary I have long discovered that Africans living aboraid are far more confident and bold in dealing with white people than Africans in africa who tend to adopt a very obsequious and ingratiating manner with the white man whenver they come across them in Africa. The blunt truth is if you an African have a fight with a white man in europe, you are more likley to be treated fairly than if you have a quarrel with a white man in Africa. Many white men have been jailed in Europe for assaulting black men there. How many white men have been jailed in Africa or Nigeria for beating up black men in our own country. Let us not fool ourselves. Our countries are glorified colonies of the west. A white man knows he can get away with far more in Africa than they can in their own country. Child sex for instance attarcts thousands of white tourists to Africa every year. How many of them do our police arrest

It is not accidental that the best nationalists were those who studied in the west and thus by living close up with the white man in his own land ended up demystifying them. Nationalism in Africa started during the first and second world wars when black men fighting in the trenches with their white colleagues saw their white masters shitting in their pants for sheer terror in the battle field.

Coming abroad and struggling on your own without local godfathers, getting jobs without letters from uncles. Working hard because your popsie doesn't know the Managing Director toughens you and prepares you for leadership. That is why every country that has developed that has moved forward has always done so wirth the support of those with the courage to leave their comfort zone and go and struggle in a starnge land