You command so much respect in Nigeria when you have money to spend, you get all the attention you need and can get almost anything you want done within a short time-frame, you get the necessary attention from the police to the public sectors, command respect from friends and neighbours, even the street urchins identify and protect your interest. It had been well easy to break into any circle and get the information you require in Nigeria when money is involved. You can be sure to get the attention you need and get anything you want done when you have the money to spare. You are the best friend to the biggest people in the corridors of power, you also occupy front sit position in our religious places. People treat you with respect and nobody cares to know how you got the money, as long as you have it to spend.
There has been reports of ritual killing and kidnapping for money and mutilated bodies are seen daily on our roads. Everyone wants to be rich so as to be accorded the respect. Its a race for reckoning and recognition. These race for money anyhow we can, have got to the point that we need to put a check to it and retrace our steps before it gets to the 'breaking point'. Our security forces are the worst culprit, they are easily taken aback and turn the table of justice very easily in favour of the highest bidder. Our Police exhibit the craze for money publicly on the street and easily kill anyone not cooperating with their demands, sometimes they easily rope you into crimes you have not committed. These trends have not shown any sign of abating, which does not show a positive sign for the nation ready to develop.
Nigerians are people who love to express themselves and show-off what they have, we love to show our wealth and impress ourselves about how well we are doing. An average eighteen year old is already dreaming of buying and riding big cars and wearing the best designers, planning a party that is talk of the town, planning to spray their money like there is no tomorrow, they go on a spending spree and paint the town red. They want to make statement in the mind of their peers, some of them get desperate to achieve this aim, they rob, cheat, or even kill to live that kind of lifestyle. A lot sees buying and showing off all these things as living a good life, most of this habits are born out of poverty we can see and smell around us, everyone needs to break-even anyhow they can, irrespective of what impact this lifestyle is having on themselves and their neighbours.
These type of lifestyles are made worse as a result of poverty that have eaten deep into our economy causing a very wide-gap between the rich and the poor and there is no immediate plan to bridge the gap. There are so much unnecessary competition for relevance, which is well impacting on our national growth and we coordinate several avenues to get our nation's image continuously battered in the international community through 419, Frauds, Scam etc. There are better ways we can create wealth for our selves, with no recourse to violence and fraud, Nigeria is a land of opportunities with equal number of intelligent people to bring the opportunities to life. If we commit half of the time we spend creating schemes for scam on working on our opportunities, our country would be better for it.
It is important for us as Nigerians to start learning to respect and coordinate our daily affairs in a respectable way, with less recourse to our financial status. As much as money is important in every human endeavours, we must be careful not to put our generation to come on the 'cutting edge', because of this increasing trend to be rich at all cost. We need to pay less attention to financial status of people and learn to respect ourselves on the basis of individuality, personal achievement and self esteem. Everyone is important and money should not be a yardstick for relating to ourselves.
We can continue to clamour for our leaders to perform, but until we also purge ourselves individually from this get rich any how trend, our country does not stand any chance. Even if our leaders postulate change and put in place mechanism for the country to progress, we can only make the progress work if we take away greediness and undue respect for money. In every thing we do, we need to understand that life is a two way process, just as we have debit as a complement of credit in the book of account, so also is the management of any group. We all blame our leaders for corruption, but a lot of Nigerians are not doing better. Every Nigerians need to shorn violence and play their own part in moving the nation forward.
In most part of the western world, it is most difficult to know who is rich because every one is treated equal, the CEO is as important as the Janitor in the place of work, your next door neighbour maybe a millionaire and yet very polite and respectful and not showing any sign of his or her wealth. The right to life should come first before the right to wealth, we need to start showing respect and care to ourselves based on self esteem and quality of the person irrespective of the financial status, this will help us more to develop a nation of realist and will reduce the rat-race for cheap prominence currently inherent in our polity. Our lives will be more secured and we can sleep with our two eyes closed. The best way to secure our carrot is not to dangle it before a horse, it is very important to coordinate our lives out of value of oneness, rather than individuals financial strength.
abiolla@gmail.com
