Systems—or the lack therof—not people, is Nigeria's true problem!
I came across this video on X, and it got me thinking:
This is the reason why I find it absolutely absurd when Nigerians—usually people that have been outside the country and have experienced “better systems”—say that Nigerians are particularly—to a much higher extent than others—just inherently lawless and law-defiant.
You’ll hear things like, “If you take Nigerians to the West and bring the West here, we’ll still go there and spoil it.” This will be absolutely correct, but it is so reductionist.
It seems they have not heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Essentially, ALL humans are inherently lawless. This is not particular to Nigeria.
The reason lawlessness is not as prevalent in the West—I can even argue otherwise but for the sake of argument—is because of multigenerational law enforcement infrastructure and systems that they have lived under. These people have experienced such an insane level of surveillance that even when it’s not there sometimes, they still lean towards acting accordingly.
This is why, in the West, a police man would more often than not be offended by bribes. This is why people rarely cross red lights. This is why you pay your taxes without anyone telling you to because you know what’s coming if you don’t.
It is also due to the economic incentive systems. Meritocracy is the status quo there, for the most part. There is definitive, almost inevitable, hope that if you work hard enough, you will be compensated for your hardwork. Even if you wanted to remain middle class, you can still thrive. That hope simply doesn’t stand here.
Nigerians have experienced a multigenerational failure of systems. We have lived under regimes of suffering and hardship, and for the vast majority of people—I argue more than 90% of the Nigerian population, considering that 6% of people earn more than 500k/month—life has always been on “hardship mode.” There’s next to zero incentive to be a good person, but to a very hungry man—emphasis on very—the risk line of taking from their neighbour to survive kind of blurs, and the action seems more viable than it actually is.
Everything has failed us—education, the economy, our security systems, our government. Everything.
What the West just needs to “become” us is to experience our unruliness and lack of policing and incentive systems for “multiple generations,” especially under our current suffocating economic climate. Let’s see whether they won’t be even worse than us.
Obviously, this doesn’t excuse bad behaviour, but please, stop making it look like we’re the worst of people when we’re just trying to survive.