When you ask a lot of people what the main problem with Nigeria is, they would give answers to effect of "corruption amongst our leaders." Is this really the case? Our leaders are in league with the devil as far as corruption is concerned but our leaders are what happens when you take the average Nigerian and give him/her authority and access to the country's wealth and the freedom and enablement to go scot free no matter the offence they've committed. Whether you like it or not, an overwhelming majority would gladly do the same thing our leaders are doing without a nudge on their conscience. The leader is from the people.

Take a look at the management of Nigerian federal and state universities and tell me if they don't mirror our leaders in the way they handle, embezzle and mismanage funds. The state of university facilities are just similar to public facilities. Take a look at the management of most top organisations in Nigeria and tell me if you don't see the similarities. Take a look at the way some academic staff treat students, especially those that criticise them or the management and spot the similarities between them and our leaders.

Take a look at the average citizen who is charge of a top organisation or at least holds a leadership position in such an organisation, give him money ex gratia to give to others beneath and see if he will not pocket it for himself or take a huge percentage from the money.

I remember a doctor at LUTH who complained that certain people were threatening his life. What was his offence? He called out people who were supplying fake and substandard medical equipments and machines despite being given sufficient funds to supply fresh and quality products. Are they different from our leaders. Society has descended to a place were salaries and pensions can be owed or stolen with reckless abandon.

To cut it short, the two main problems with this country are the great disregard of our value system and the pronounced materialistic mentality of the average Nigerian. When shit hits the fan or a tempting situation arises, the average Nigerian has no regard for morality and the average Nigerian has reduced everything to naira and kobo and is fuelled by greed, envy and vanity. The life purpose and complete ambition of the average Nigerian guy is to count and own many naira and kobo and then build that grand house; buy that latest car; marry and give birth to units. That's all that matters to him.

Even in churches, when hands are lifted up in praise to a non existent god and the pastor shouts "you will be great in life," the sheeples will scream "amen." Let the pastorpreneur tell them they have a glorious destiny and see the way jubilate. There is nothing wrong in being great or want a great "destiny" but what do they mean by being "great in life" or having a glorious future? Counting and owning abundant naira and kobo and that's all. E no dey pass getting money then building house, marrying and having kids. These things are good but what about giving back to society and impacting lives? What about improving society? What about our value system? What about doing what is right for the sake of what is right?

Since everything has been reduced to naira and kobo, the abandonment of moral values is automatic because morality alone doesn't put food on the table. Infact, morality is not for the weak and greedy as persistent and higher levels of morality will require you forgo mouth watering bribes, highly fruitful fraud opportunities and the likes. If all of us could swindle people like our top pastors and be as rich in six months, 99.9% of nairalanders would be rich. If an opportunity to smash the head of a new born baby against a rock for a billion dollars present itself and no one would find out, 99.999% of nairalanders would be billionaires by now. How many nairalanders would see #950,000 on the floor and return it to the owner?

When everything is all about the naira and kobo, what happens? Millionaires and billionaires, irrespective of how they got their money, become role models and objects of praise. Politicians that are clearly shown to be fraudsters are still praised and espoused by their hungry and ignorant supporters. Yahoo boys, when caught, receive a lot of sympathy. In fact, top yahoo boys are the heros and role models for many because they are living the dream — counting many naira and kobold. As nairalander once said, to have most nigerians support and shamelessly asslick me, I need to have a lot of money and do give aways from time to time. In fact, if you say the moon is made of cheese in an argument, they would support you.



to be continued. I have to eat .

To your topic- The leadership is a product of the people

To your topic- The leadership is a product of the people

When you eat finish drink water o

You made a lot of sense... Woah

I'm really tired of this country.

Both..the leadership is a reflection of the people.

Just look at the average daily lives of nigerians, their local communities. If the average daily lives and community organisations arent productive, how do you expect to see results in state and national level...

... Continued

Before I list some of the solutions and other problems plaguing this country, let me list an additional example on how deep the reduction to naira and kobo of everything in existent is in this country. If you ask most Nigerians "Would you want to be president?" you would get an immediate "yes" or "why not?". When I was a little boy, I remember attending a church in Lagos and during a Sunday programme, the pastor shouted "if you want your son to become president and you believe god can do it, come out immediately" and a lot of women ran in great haste to the altar. In both cases, it is not bad to want to be the president but if you examine why they want to achieve this desire, it would turn out that they see it as financially making it in life and nothing more. It's a poverty alleviating opportunity and a room to nurture and massage their self importance and ego. Why can't the focus and motive of wanting to be the president be the desire to effect positive and outstanding changes and contribution?

In this country, we treat each other badly and worship foreigners and as a result, others treat us badly. We use ourselves as properties to get cash and high social status. We don't even care about ourselves. What almost everyone likes is to make money then show off so that others can drool in admiration and envy, it massages our vanity of wanting to be worshipped and revered. Many of us, despite going to church and serving the supposed god of the highest moral uprightness, don't treat others nicely. We treat like trash those we think are beneath us or are useless to us. No wonder fake friendship and fake love abounds in Nigeria. If we use people as utilities and treat people like trash, how are you different from out leaders? Let me demonstrate.

Our leaders only care about us when election is around the corner or when they want to build a good image. After election, they forget about us and it becomes clear that the masses are just pawns to these politicians. Do you know that 6000+ Nigerians are rotting in oblivion in China as kidnapped victims who have their organs harvested? Many are usually killed after having their organs harvested. The Chinese government has done nothing about this neither has our Nigerian government. What about the slaves in libya? If we cannot treat each other rightly, how do you expect foreigners to treat us rightly? Even female and male soccer players are owed bonuses after serving their country. Politicians have their children abroad while our educational system is sinking. Even when ASUU calls a strike lasting for several months, the government does nothing to hastily remedy the situation. What is going on? What is wrong with us? Politicians don't care a damn about you.

Another problem wrong with this country is our indiscipline, impatience and disregard for rules. Have you ever disobeyed traffic rules? Then you are one of the problems of this country. From little and supposed inconsequential misdeeds come forth almost ineradicable rot and decadence of the system. Why are we plagued and cursed to have a poor maintenance attitude? Despite knowing that we should dumped our litters in the trash bins, many are lackadaisical and still dump pure water sachets and wrappers on the floor or gutters. It gets even worse that people throw stuffs from moving vehicles to the road side. If you are guilty of these, what then is the difference between you and the leader you hate so much? The leaders don't care about amenities and public infrastructure just as you don't care about your environment. Japan is very clean and tidy because of their citizens not government.

In many developed countries, when there is a flood, you can swim in the flood but how many floods in this country are clean enough for reasonable people to swim in? The water is contaminated by organic(decayed or fresh) and inorganic dirt and rubbish. In fact some of the floods experienced here are caused by the congestion of gutters by the very rubbish we improperly disposed into these gutters. Have you ever driven opposite a one way road to cut corners? If yes, you are one of the problems of this country and you have no excuse. Have you ever gently, or forcefully, collected bribe as a police man or SARS operative? You have no excuse and you are one of the problems of this country. This fact that the government isn't paying your salary or underpaying you gives you no right to make citizens scapegoats. Why not face the government, which is the problem, instead of the people (who are innocent). After all, the people didn't ask the government to underpay or owe you salary. In this country, people would rather brutally exploit or butcher each other for cash than stand up to their government.

Next, I shall list some solutions that would help us.

... to be continued, let me eat.