Only in Nigeria!

We were celebrating the birthday celebration of one of our friend's children,  and as usual, a few of the 'men folk' who were able to detach themselves from kitchen activities and migrated outside to form a subgroup (with the ladies permission, I might say). And the topics ranged from politics to football and mentioned the current Ebola crisis and how well Nigeria had seemed to control it. After eating the usual Jollof or special fried rice, fried chicken, etc. and washing down with 'minerals' (soft drinks). The discussion quickly switched to Nigeria, and the usual Nigerian bashing began then. After a while, one of them said, "Why Nigeria can't it be just like the UK?". "If Nigeria was even 10% of the UK, I would not have left, Nigga", he added. Already people were beginning to feel the heat in the UK and were slightly uncomfortable.

Apart from experiencing what they felt might be a form of indirect racism. Some of my brothers at the party felt discontented as if they had stayed back in Nigeria. They believed that they would have been at the top of their game in various professions. Some felt and actually believed that they would have been professors, managers, directors, CEO's, top politicians or even governors. So, in addition to that, once you come to the UK, you would have to start at the bottom of the pecking order. 

After reaching a particular stage, the hope of promotion was improbable,  if not non-existent. Then in the UK, the hours seem ridiculous, as if you sold your soul and that is not you were working overtime. There are targets and objectives to meet, and you are marked to achieve these goals. It is not that these brothers did not achieve their targets,  but they felt that the 'game' was biased against them. Mainly services run the economy in the UK, and it is not 'comfortable' for most black males. You must come across as being an active, enthusiastic team player, develop wealthy social and communication skills and have the ability to make people feel at ease in your presence. People just like, in some instances, love you on first contact (you should dress sharply and bring them in for the business), as you are representing yourself and the company. In addition, you must smile a lot. Some of the brothers find it seems to be coming across as false and deceitful. One of the brothers busted out, "it is not my job to make the client laugh and feel happy. "There are comedians for that, isn't there?" another brother exploded. Although it seems this particular brother had long missed the boat, I learned that he had recently lost his job and is now moonlighting as a security man. But some men had tried this, and despite this, they were not promoted and felt foolish afterwards.

Then don't let me go on about the weather. So I would not (that's a joke - everyone complains about the weather, that's what the British are good at) ….. There are extremes of heat in summer. The weather reporters rub it in …" the temperature is similar to what is on the south coast of Spain or Jamaica". Then there are winds and floods, the rain etc. When it snows, the children love it, making snow angels and snowmen, but the adults know it is a triple whammy. The schools may be shut (you have to quickly arrange for child care, this is extra expensive – because it is at short notice), the snow seems to bring the temperature down. The snow would form black ice when impacted, which is very slippery and increases travel time (you might even have to pay the childminder extra), causing 'go slows', 'hold ups', etc.

And there is no house help, and the brothers and their wives have to do all the washing and cooking. Some men feel frustrated in cooking, cleaning or washing when you could get someone else to do for far less in Nigeria. But in the UK, one has either to fork out money (which may be around £40 to £100 per day per child) or stop working and spend time taking care of their own children. One of the brothers calculated that if he stopped working and was paid to take care of his own children at the current rate, he would be getting more than his current salary (he had 4 children with another on the way). In addition, the school could be terrible, and additional children tutoring could be arranged at the drop of a hat at any level in Nigeria. By undergraduates and university graduates who were looking to make extra cash. Then some parents feel discipline has gone to the dogs. Although we all have mixed experiences, some parents feel that a quick fast smack is more effective and less damaging. Then using techniques they believed were more complex and used in mind control, mental conditioning and psychological warfare on children. As they believed they would produce children with psychopathic tenderizes and serial killers. But the issue of 'a quick smack' has left one or two of the brothers being 'followed up with the Social Services, Police, and Child Protection Agency. They found themselves being brought forward in front of the authorities after one of their children had 'mentioned at school' the method of discipline their parents had used.

Whatever the reason, there was lots of nostalgia for Nigeria. This led to the statement, which is often altered under similar conditions. When people feel disappointed or frustrated about the current condition in Nigeria and at the same time, may feel discontented about their present situation in a western foreign country. It beings, like "It is only in Nigeria you will see ….." Most of the time, this statement is to get the audience to empathize with the speaker and see the treachery or deceitfulness of the average Nigerian towards his fellow citizen. It could be due to a Nigerian artificially inflating the price of food or hoarding an essential commodity or service and releasing it later to receive higher returns. 

The whole idea is that things were not going smoothly as expected since a Nigerian had thrown a spanner in the works to maximize their returns. This might go along the root of the people suspecting that the petroleum importers are getting together and frustrating all the FGN's efforts to build petrol refineries to ensure their profit from exporting crude oil and then importing refined petrol prices. Another might be people believing that the generator importers have been sabotaging the PHCN to get adequate electricity in Nigeria. The Pharmacological drug importers who were purposely bringing fake drugs into the country, which they were fully aware could kill people. The fact that these people, i.e. petrol, generator, drug importers, are well known and have reported having close and personal relationships with those in government, they are often 'invited' to one or the other parties and do receive gifts from them, which might be interpreted as a 'conflict of interest' in the developed world, added to the speculation.

But it seems to be a pattern, according to Professor Paul Collier. Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre of the Study of African Economies at Oxford, Nigeria, is not unique. In his book 'The Bottom Billion' he said our fate was sealed once Nigeria started its first commercial oil field in 1956. After independence, the government gradually eroded the processes or policies in place or checks and balances which were supposed to cover the collection and spending of the excess oil money. In short, we were not transparent. Until recently, he said the term "Oil Democracy" seemed to be an oxymoron. They tended to be autocratic. After gaining independence, the FGN fell out with the opposition, jailing the official Leader of Opposition for 10 years on treason charges. They had curtailed Western power by splitting it into 2 regions, West and Mid-West. Hence in a way, the Nigerian government had a free hand because they had seriously reduced the power of the opposition. Prof Paul Collier added that (most people would find surprising) because we were not taxed enough could be linked to one of the causes of our problems.

As if we were taxed enough, "this would provoke citizens into supply the public good of scrutiny over how their taxes are being spent". The rest, they say, is history. "As oil revenues built up, the country's other exports – such as peanuts and coca –became unprofitable, and production rapidly collapsed". In the '60s and '70s in Nigeria, agriculture was still playing a prominent role. It had Agriculture Boards, which helped farmers buy, grow, sell, grade, etc., their produce – Making the Cocoa Farmers the most affluent men around. Oil killed Nigeria agriculture industries. It seems OBJ's OFN (Operation Feed the Nation) in the late '70s and Shagari's Green Revolution in the early '80s failed to revive the Agriculture sector. According to Prof Collier, any country that has is resource-rich and has not been able to put transparency and adequate check and balances in place would suffer this trend. In simple terms, our condition, also known as "Dutch disease", is an increase in the economic development of natural resources and a decline in the manufacturing sector (or agriculture). In another book, "Why Nations Fail: The origins of power, prosperity and poverty, by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson – the authors indicated that, in short, for a country to develop, it needed inclusive economic institutions. These inclusive economic institutions will not support nor be supported by extractive political institutions. Unfortunately, once the political power is limited to a narrow group of elites, economic growth will constrain. He described the term creative destruction. Hence ethnic tensions, corruptions, civil wars, coups, rebellions etc., are symptoms of the underline disease. The lack of adequate monitoring, transparency and accountability leave all the top jobs free and open to criminals. Our founding fathers (if they could be called this) thought that the laws and political processes were a hindrance. They circumvented or removed them. The political parties were formed based on ethnic loyalties and patronages typical of a resource-rich country with weakened political restrains. The term 'Resource Curse' might be more familiar to some or 'paradox of plenty, which essentially refer to the same condition. The government becomes inefficient, vast spread corruption, many of those in a government store their money in offshore tax havens, internal conflicts are provoked which might emerge as separatist conflicts, revenue volatility, excessive borrowing, autocratic governments, etc.

We have seen that corruption is common in developing countries of "low income – high resource" countries. Still, Nigerians have carried corruption to another level, which could explain the term often used "Only in Nigeria". For example, it was reported that Nigerian officials are the highest-paid public officials worldwide. It was said that a US Senator earns $174,000 per annual and a UK member of parliament a modest $64,000. Our senators earn $1,700,000 per year in salaries plus allowances, and the House of Representatives $1,450,000 (vanguard title: Nigerian lawmakers are the highest paid the world –Date August 25, 2013). Where is a country the average income is below both in the UK and USA? Although I believe this article might be press sensationalism, over-elaboration, distorting, misdirecting, and the official salary being far less, it does prove a point. The number of states has increased from 3 regions to 36, bringing up the cost of governance and increasing the number of states, one might have said they might have solved a lot of problems, but new monsters have risen in their place. As a new set of majorities are produced, trapped minorities are created. There have been various meetings, and it seems that 18 additional states are on the cards, increasing to 54 states. Our federation is based on each area getting or claiming their part of the national cake or our national resource as that seems to be the only source of income for a state. Hence, we have created a "cult of parasitism and dependency, and the power of the centre will guarantee that the struggle to produce the president will remain bloody". People have suggested that due to the unstable nature of the oil market and the effect that it has done on us (resource curse), we should wean ourselves from the dependency on oil. Develop our Agriculture and financial sectors, reduce the number of states (and cost of governance) divert the money saved to building infrastructure in the health and education sector. Become more transparent (which has met with various degrees of success), increase checks and balances, introduce policies and processes that demand transparency, freedom of the press, etc. We dream of becoming one of the top 20 global financial powers by 2020 (Nigeria Vision 2020), but others predicted we would no longer exist as a nation by 2015.


Although predictable Nigerian's problems are not unique to a low income, high resource country of about more than 170 Million people, Nigeria has the 7th largest population in the world. The intensity of the problem might be due to the large population and the amounts involved. Nigeria is the 6th Exporter of Oil, after Saudi Arabia, Russia, UAE, Kuwait and Iraq. The largest outside Russia and the Middle East, the highest in Africa, producing more than 2,224,000 per day, is a lot of money. With the USA fracking and the western powers looking to alternative energy sources, the oil price is reducing our primary source of income. This will result in a game-changer, and the dynamics will change, producing unpredictable events in Nigeria. So I guess I will hear more "Only In Nigeria "s.