The concept of reputation is one of the most fundamental enabler of human social interactions and relationships. A person who has a difficult court case will most likely, if she can afford it, seek the services of a lawyer with a reputation for winning difficult cases. No reasonable man would want his hair cut by a barber who has reputation for messing peoples' hair up. If you want your faulty car fixed, you wouldn't take it to a mechanic who has a reputation for lying and using substandard car parts.

    
In today's global world where countries depend on one another's resources and expertise in other to thrive - or in some cases - survive, the importance of a country having a good reputation is at an all time high. Individuals from different countries have to trade goods and services, and exchange ideas with one another if they are to continue existing. Looking around me now, I can see an air conditioner that was made in Korea, tablets for high blood pressure that were manufactured in India, and a pair of shoes that was produced in Italy. You get the point.

When a single individual from a certain country acquires a bad reputation among individuals from other countries in the course of her interactions and transactions with them, she suffers the consequences alone. But when a tiny minority of people from a particular country develop a bad reputation over time in the course of their dealings with people from other countries, the negative consequences arising from their misdeeds affect not only them, but also their innocent compatriots. Due to the flaws of human reasoning and perception, a negative stereotype forms in the minds of the people from the other countries, and this causes them to tar every single individual from the offenders' country with the same brush.

    
We have a reputation, compatriots, and - it saddens me to tell you - it's a bad one.

    
We have a reputation for cyber crime.

    
Every night thousands of young men - and a sprinkling of young women - across Nigeria's largest cities - Lagos, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, and so on - switch on their laptop and desktop computers to begin 'work'. This 'work' isn't keeping tabs on the stock market or writing lines of code, but seeking for the next hapless and vulnerable person to defraud on social media sites, preferably a Caucasian living in a Western nation. This they achieve through, among other things, online dating scams.

    
Last year alone, Americans lost an eye-watering $143 million (#50.15 billion) to online dating scams. Canadians, their northern neighbours, were swindled out of $22.5 million (#6 billion). Australians lost $60.5 million (#15.24 billion), while Brits were cheated out of £50 million (#23.5 billion). It is safe to assume that a decent chunk of these monies found its way to Nigeria, because Nigerian online fraudsters are big players in this 'industry.'

    
Any Nigerian who has tried doing legitimate business online on sites like Fiverr or Upwork must have had the unpleasant experience of losing a lucrative deal at the mention of his or her nationality. And this is a huge problem because more and more young, law-abiding Nigerians are taking up freelancing in order to make ends meet.
    
    
We have a reputation for drug trafficking.
    
    
Every year thousands of Nigerians, young and old, smuggle assorted hard drugs to other countries. Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and so on. Some of these Nigerians are caught and are now languishing in prisons across the world, with a few on death row. As a consequence of this terrible situation, many law-abiding Nigerians living or studying in places like Malaysia, South Africa, and India to name but a few, are stereotyped by the locals, and even by other nationals within those countries, as potential or active drug dealers in a 'you-are-guilty-until-proven-innocent' type of situation. Many innocent Nigerians in South Africa have been brutally murdered in xenophobic attacks after being falsely accused of peddling drugs.
    
    
We have a reputation for human trafficking.

    
Every year unscrupulous Nigerians sell their unsuspecting compatriots in the thousands into modern slavery in countries like Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, and as prostitutes in countries like Italy, Spain and Thailand. In 2018, over 1 million Nigerians were estimated to be living in modern slavery. On arrival to these countries, these Nigerians - mostly young women - have their passports and other travel documents seized by their oppressors. The slaves are put to work, sometimes without pay, in homes where their basic human rights - freedom of movement, freedom from torture and degrading treatment, the right to privacy - are routinely violated by their Arab 'employers.' The prostitutes are forced to have paid sex with foreigners in order to settle a huge debt they had no idea they were incurring. They too experience routine violations of their basic human rights.

How should we go about repairing our damaged reputation? First and foremost, we have to identify the major causes of these crimes and tackle them. When that is achieved, the effects brought about by these major causes - cyber crime, drug and human trafficking - will be greatly reduced. What are the major causes? Unemployment and underemployment.

According to the methodology adopted by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its latest unemployment report, you are unemployed if you do absolutely no work, or you work for less than 20 hours a week (and so you can't take care of your basic needs), not because you have chosen to work this way, but because you have tried to work more hours or tried looking for a better job but have not succeeded.

You are underemployed if you work for at least 20 hours but less than 40 hours a week, or if you work full time, but are engaged in an activity that underutilizes your skills, time and educational qualifications.

Nigeria's total population is divided into the labour force and the non labour force. The labour force covers those between 15 and 64 years who are willing and able to work regardless of whether or not they have a job. That figure stood at 90.5 million in 2018. Of the 90.5 million, 20.9 million were unemployed, and 18.21 million were underemployed.

In order words we have about 21 million able-bodied Nigerians who are idle and broke, and a further 18 million who are trapped in jobs that underutilize their skills. This represents an unemployment rate of 23%. For comparison the unemployment rate of India is 3.52%, that of the US is 3.70%, Indonesia has an unemployment rate of 5.34%, while that of Pakistan is 5.90%. It is no wonder that many Nigerians turn to crime to in order to survive.

How can we tackle these causes? Here are a few suggestions.

First, we should pile enormous pressure on the government to tackle unemployment and underemployment because these are the principal reasons why many Nigerians turn to crime, thereby tarnishing our reputation. I am not saying we should ask the government to create jobs but to put the necessary policies and infrastructure in place that will boost the operations of existing small and medium-sized enterprises - which are the backbone of any developed economy - and encourage the creation of new ones. We should, as a matter of urgency, vociferously demand that our government provide adequate electricity, build and equip more skills acquisition centres, build and maintain extensive road networks and railway lines to facilitate the smooth movement of goods from one part of the country to another, make it easier for budding entrepreneurs to have access to low-interest loans, and so on. With these things in place, more Nigerians will abandon crime and embrace entrepreneurship.

    
Second, every one of us who aren't into crime should become anonymous police informants. You know of a house where cyber criminals reside? Report to the police or the EFCC anonymously, because if you don't, the crooks in that house might scam the best friend of the woman who has plans to approach you on Fiverr and ask you to help her build a website. We should all be snitches.

    
Third, the government, NGOs and well-meaning Nigerians should invest in nationwide enlightenment campaigns aimed at informing vulnerable Nigerians about the modes of operation of drug and human traffickers, and debunking the myth of the power of juju to bring calamity upon anyone who breaks the oath of secrecy that new recruits and victims of these criminal enterprises are sworn to, so that those who want to come out of the closet can do so without fear. There should also be campaigns aimed at informing Nigerians, educated and uneducated alike, about the serious damage that cyber criminals do to our national image and the negative consequences that arise from their activities so that many Nigerians can change from being in support of these rogues, to being in opposition to them, and become more willing to report them to law enforcement.

We can transform our reputation and metamorphose from being mocked as a failed state overrun by criminals to being admired as a prosperous nation full of ambitious and innovative high achievers. We need not wait for the next generation. We can achieve it now if we work together. Let's do it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/business/ftc-online-romance-scams.html

https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/local/canadians-lost-more-than-225-million-to-romance-scams-in-2018-284179/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-29/accc-report-scams-2018-surge489-million/11053946

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47176539

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/04/africa/nigeria-benin-city-sex-trafficking/index.html

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/data/country-data/nigeria/

https://nigerianstat.gov.ng/download/856