I am from Cameroon and here is my take on the negative perception of Nigeria.... It’s gonna be a long one. Also I’m a native French speaker so don’t mind my English.

Why do many countries not like Nigeria? Population & Perception


ABOUT CRIME

Nigerians are said to be criminal, aggressive, loud etc... The main “problem” Nigeria has is its sheer number. Roughly 200 millions of them. I don’t think Nigerians are more criminal than any other country. But the fact is 1 in 8 black person on planet Earth is Nigerian. So no matter where you go you will have a Nigerian community. They will be bigger than any other African community and therefore be more visible. For say 1 criminal from Cameroon in a given country you will have 8 from Nigeria (simply because their population is 8 times that of Cameroon) thus creating the impression that they are more corrupted/criminal that any other country when they are not.

Take the famous “Nigerian scam” aka 419. I genuinely feel sorry for Nigerians because again they don’t have the monopoly of that. Unfortunately because of the sheer size of the population, you have the impression that it’s only them when it’s every where in Africa (I’ve personally been to 23 African countries and counting). By the way you must admit that you have to be smart to be able to extract money from someone you’ve never seen.

ABOUT BEING AGGRESSIVE

Nigerians must be aggressive because of their number. Let me tell you a story about my first trip to Nigeria. I landed in Lagos early the morning (6am or so). The drive from the airport to the city Center was long and boy there was a lot of traffic. I could see lots and lots (in their thousands) of people along side the highway and couldn’t understand why. They couldn’t have been waiting for a bus (on a high way??) to go to work right? When we had to stop because of the traffic, the car I was in was swarmed by hawkers! It was very scary to be honest. There were only 3 of us in the car: the driver, an armed guard (company policy) and myself, yet there must have been a dozen people surrounding the car and offering to sale all sort of shit from chewing gums to cigarets (not even packets but in the unit). I was shocked and asked myself “how much do they even make per day selling these things? There is so much competition anyway, can they even sell”?? It dawned on me that no matter how much they were making they had to be up early and be agressive if they wanted to make any mone. I always felt that all Nigerian have that kind of “survival of the fittest” mentality. That means being aggressive (in the good sense)

ABOUT BEING LOUD

Again that’s due to the population. If you want to be heard you have to be loud simple as that. Be it at work, school or even your family you have to be loud and in your face to even get noticed. I guess it’s another form of agression.

ABOUT BEING COCKY/ARROGANT

Again this is due to the size of the population and country. I call that “big country syndrome”. I saw very similar behaviour in the US. You can’t blame them. If you’re a Nigerian entrepreneur you won’t give a damn about other countries. Why? Because you have a population of 200 millions to serve. Why would you bother looking at a country like Benin ? Different legal system, language, currency and more importantly a population of just 11 million when Lagos alone has a population of 21 million.

In my experience Nigerians are both cocky and ignorant. Ignorant because they don’t know or care about other African countries. In Africa they only know South Africa, Ghana and to a certain extend Kenya.

Again I see a lot of similarities with America.

ABOUT TREVOR ZYLSTRA

Trevor Zylstra said Cameroon had a few tussle with Nigeria. Not sure what you mean but yeah there was a dispute over Bakassi an oil rich island. The conflit was peacefully resolved.

Nigeria at some point blamed Cameroon for not fighting Boko Haram (forgetting that they let that cancer grow and spread in many countries). After many terrorists attacks, Cameroon army step up and cooperation has been excellent and we are united agains those bastards.

Last but not least there are unrest in the English speaking part of Cameroon (Cameroon and Canada are the only 2 countries to be bilingual French-English). Some of our English speaking compatriots (I am from the French speaking side), who represent roughly 20% of the population, feel they have been poorly treated and want independence. Some have taken up arms and fighting a small guerrilla war. Since that part of the country has a border with Nigeria, arms were smuggled from Nigeria and terrorists had training camp in Nigeria. Again, thanks to the excellent cooperation at government level, Nigeria has sent troops to control the borders, thus significantly reducing the supply routes for terrorists.

Last but not least I want to stress that Cameroon and Nigeria have bilateral agreement and Nigerians can come to Cameroon anytime and without visa and the reverse is true. It it estimated that there are 1 million Nigerian living in Cameroon (in a population of 25 mn). We’ve never had any particular issues with them.

I for one like Nigerians but admit that I won’t date a Nigerian woman. Don’t get me wrong: they are as beautiful, smart as it gets but boy are they high maintenance. To much wahala... (trouble).




Source: Quora

lalasticlala, mynd44

That's someone's opinion from Quora.

TheSTreetman:
That's someone's opinion from Quora.

Sure it is

Bakassi wasn't a English word neither is a French word. Can you tell us what that word mean in your local dialect?

Because your people dont behave well outside Nigeria