What do I mean by the Original Nigerian?

Well, from what I think, it should mean what a true and real Nigerian should be like. Is Nigeria what it should be like? No! How do I know this for sure? Well, I do not believe that any country like Nigeria with this great amount of population and great amount of land and also resources should have her citizens living like underdogs of the world. Think about this – is Nigeria under populated, overpopulated or optimally populated? Nigeria is optimally populated comparing the people with the resources available. A lot of other countries actually envy our resources, land fertility and population but what do we make of this? A poverty stricken nation where a reasonable number of the population lives below the average standard of living. What then is wrong with Nigeria? Is it corruption? Underutilization of resources? Lack of refineries? Bad roads? Poor educational system? Poor leadership system? Electricity conditions? Illiteracy? Well, yes, all these are obviously problems of Nigeria, but let us look much more closely; why do we have these problems? Our leaders eh? But is it just them? Well, not really; so what then or who then is responsible for the problems of Nigeria? Nigerians! Yes, us! A lot of Nigerian citizens just behave as if our leaders are the only corrupt ones.

Nowadays, people believe that corruption is not corruption until one is caught red-handed. Corruption has so hit the country that the younger ones imbibe the habit of corruption as part of the Nigerian culture. It is not unusual to see children in primary schools cheat in exam halls, steal things that do not belong to them, collect little stipends from colleagues to assist in a job and even bribe each other for the sake of keeping secrets. I once came across a quote which in plain terms was something like ‘if as a little child you stole from your mother’s pot, then you are no different from our leaders.’ Let truth be told, if as a little child you stole meat or anything from your parents or even anyone and when asked about it you lie or in some cases put the blame on someone else, what then will you do when you become a leader someday? A class captain of a primary or secondary school will in no circumstance write the name of the most troublesome person in the class in the noisemakers’ list just because they are best friends; instead of doing that, warn the concerned fellow and if he/she does not comply, write the name of the person and I assure you that the person will definitely start to comply. Let us all apply this to ourselves in our families, workplaces and everywhere else every time. Do not promote or demote unduly, do not jump queues, work for your results and make Nigeria proud of you.

The problem of our dear country is us and the only way we can make our lives better is to make sure we watch our actions starting from now, I believe in the meliorism of our country, be your brother’s keeper. If everyone in the country sweeps his/her surroundings every day, the whole country will be clean; let us to keep our hands clean in all we do. This is the first step to making her great, this problem of ours is ours and let us treat it as ours for no other country or individual will do it for us. If we do this, we will get the glory and see a bright and glorious Nigeria, if we don’t we still get the shame attached to being a Nigerian; let us rise up and stop telling stories of our once glorious country and lamenting about our devastating present state but look ahead and create the best future we can ever imagine. Be the Real Nigerian, be the Original Nigerian, stand for a Better Nigeria, stand for development.

There is no better way to end this than to ask you my dear reader this question, ‘if everyone in Nigeria was like you, how will Nigeria be?’

madeofnaij.