The fundamental problem of Nigeria is the mindset of most Nigerians. Because of poverty, and illiteracy, most Nigerians are still un aware of the degree of collapse system Nigeria has, and the hope for rescue is a hopeless hope.
Some Nigerians have an inborn mentality of undermining orders and due process because the system is build on poor moral standards where every operator believes that where he or she works, is where he or she eats.
If we want to get things done right in Nigeria, our sentimentality is the proper place to start from, let’s begin to reorient ourselves, if possible, there should be a scheme like a national training program to teach the Nigerian people about the ideology of Nigeria and philosophy of Nigeria, let’s sell a Nigerian dream that stands for everybody not for individuals.
Nigeria is a country where people believe that extortion is a normal thing, forgery, fraud, and bribery in a Nigerian society is a norm.
That is why if you want to trade or do any kind of business, you must have some extra budget amount for bribe, let me give you a typical example of Nigeria mentality.
In Nigeria, every ministry where government business is being carried out, there are a group of people standing outside the ministry, or they have already procure a place in the entrance of the ministry or in one section of the ministry, they called themselves agents, so if you want to procure anything that has to do with the government like an national identity cards, international passport and anything official processing, these people will come in between you and the system, and they will charge you extra money, if officially, what you want to do is charged for 5,000 Naira they will charge you 25,000 Naira.
What’s happening in Nigeria is, whatever is supposed to be cost 5 naira is cost 25 naira, what this means is that everything you want to do in Nigeria, you have to budget double of the actual cost amount because there are people who are going to come in between you and whatever services you need, all because the mentality is that, this is what I do, and I must make money from it.
If you want to get a house to rent or an apartment to rent, there are people who call themselves agents to whom you have to consult to help you procure a house for you to rent, so you don’t get to see a proper management as supposed to a global standard best practice.
Nigeria mentality about making money is that extorting money from any source is just normal, nobody have a problem with that, nobody questioned you as long as you have the money, they mindset is to make the money.
So here you have every child believing in this philosophy and idealism, and it has become part of our nature.
If you want to talk about the fabric of the problem of Nigeria, it boils down to the mentality of the people, their moral standards, their trade code of conduct, their transactional ethics, their service rendering processes without double standards, and ETC.
The problem of Nigeria is in everything, from education to health, to procurement, to travel, and it is in every industry.
Everything has roots in corruption, bribery and extortion, forgery, and fraud, all of these things make up the dilapidation of the system of Nigeria, let me give you an instance from education, in education, it is a popular thing now which everyone knows.
So how do we get rid of this type of Nigeria we have inherited, this is the question that can only be answered by the Gods. There are secondary school kids who believes that they don’t need to write senior secondary school exams by themselves, or to even work hard to pass the exams because they believe they can easily pay someone to get the certificate.
If a Presidential candidate of a country can submit a forge certificate and still get elected into office as President, then Nigeria has just solidified her shamelessness.
Most of them don’t even sit for exams, they just have to pay for it and someone else’s can sit and write for them while they spend their time looking for who to defraud. We are talking about age 14– 17/28 years high school students.
So here is a system of education where people can buy certificates and later become members of parliament and government officials, with this mentality, from a very young age, they can do anything without guilt or conscience.
I have been a victim of this as well, because as a Nigerian, if you want to grow to a certain level in life, you are being forced to be part of this crumbling madness, and you become infected by these elements and if your try to stay true to your morals standard, you are seen and the unserious and lazy type of youth. Even parent are helping their children to become criminals and fraudsters.
These are some of the things, if you go to a public hospital, you are being referred to a private hospital by a Doctor who is working in the public hospital for the government, and operates his or her own private hospital, they will not treat patients in a public hospital, Instead they will referred patients to their private hospitals. sick patience that have to pay counter receptionist at hospitals to manoeuvre their ways to see a doctor.
These are instrument of government been used by individuals to enrich their personal lives and government don’t do anything about it.
Moving from average level to the worst level of decay, look at all the government officials who continue to take what belongs to the people into their own private properties.
There’s no code of morality or integrity, all of these things have been destroying the fabric of a natural system of Nigeria.
These things are the problems that is why we cannot talk about fixing Nigeria if we cannot change the mindset of Nigerians, we have to shape the ideology that work for all Nigerians not for selfish solo independent individuals.
We have had many years of talking about corruption in Nigeria, and how to fight corruption with every instrument that is possible to eradicate corruption in Nigeria, but have we eradicate the extortion of money from petty traders in the streets, have we set up a task force to root out bribery elements in our street?
Corruption is not just about government official stealing money, corruption is in every aspect of our lives. People who support the idea of market people extorting money from their customers, these things are problems, there’s no market management system in Nigeria, products services management control, No price regulation on public good and service, no standards or products price control regulation.
To change Nigeria, we need to start building the mindset right, the problem is, if you go to other countries, it is not even conceivable for you as a citizen to start thinking about how to steal government money in the first place because of the morality of their system.
Nigeria need to work on the mentality of the people, the money mindset of Nigerian people need to be root off, the whole tree of our mentality about making money by any means especially through illegal ways should no be encouraged.
If the church or religious institutions cannot help Nigeria by orienting value and to correct our moral values, let’s begin making effort to re-orient our youths on the standard practices.
Let’s Look deep into the culture of our mentality and see that there is a critical need of fixing it, it’s like a cancer, and we need to cure it now before it kills us all.
