Every country can count among its citizens – the good, the bad and the ugly. Usually those in the last two categories are a minority. Nigerian Correctional Service figures from 2015 show that there were just over 56,000 prison inmates in the country.
Even if we make a generous provision of one million persons for those who ought to join them behind bars, the bad eggs amongst us would still be a minute fraction of our over 150 million people. On second thought, one million might just be a terribly conservative estimate!
Despite being a tiny sample of the populace, the activities of the ‘ugly Nigerian’ now define us across the globe. This is because boorish behaviour and criminality generate more headlines than civility and honesty.
In most places you travel to in Africa, the stereotype of the loud Nigerian hangs around us like bad body odour. We are perceived as aggressive, dishonest, criminally-inclined, lacking in humility and attention-seeking show offs.
Many of these adjectives don’t describe me, just as I am sure they don’t apply to the vast majority of our people. Unfortunately, there is enough in those words that speaks of what we are becoming as a nation.
The recent episode of xenophobia – or more pointedly Afrophobia – in South Africa has received deserved condemnation. Still, it provides a window of self-examination for us.
If Nigerians are being set upon, we should ask ourselves why we are so hated. Whether in South Africa, Kenya or Ghana, we are not exactly flavour of the month.
I found part of the answer in a comment section of a story about how Nigerian-owned businesses had been burnt in parts of Johannesburg. The commentator, obviously a Kenyan, was far from sympathetic. He talked about how we are everywhere in Nairobi, selling drugs and messing things up.
As for our numbers which we often proudly cite as making us the ‘giant of Africa’, that, he felt, was part of the problem. We are too many and should try birth control!
Truth be told, the gradual collapse of our national economy over the last two decades, has meant that there are not enough opportunities for our teeming millions.
For many of our young people, living in this country is a fate worse than death. That is why despite the well-advertised perils of travelling through the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean to reach Europe, they are willing to take the risk.
In fact, many who were repatriated after horrible experiences in Libya, started talking about returning the moment their plane touched down in Lagos. They extolled the virtues of their hosts while blaming their travails on the excesses of their countrymen.
The very pressures that have sent hundreds of thousands of our citizens fleeing to the four corners of the world, are also prevalent in places like South Africa.
There is massive unemployment and poverty among the black population. Little wonder that the poor are venting their frustration on the equally black and foreign poor, who have come to compete with them for the crumbs their country offers.
It is virtually impossible to stop people from seeking a better life elsewhere. But it is a privilege when any country opens its doors to a foreigner. The problem is we used to be known for our oil exports, today we’re becoming infamous for exporting criminals. No country would accept that.
Nigeria’s Ambassador to Burkina Faso, Ramatu Ahmed, just revealed that over 10,000 underage girls from this country had been forced into prostitution in the country by traffickers who have promised to get them to Europe.
Very reliable government sources say there are over 10,000 Nigerians currently in South African prisons. A couple of weeks ago, the FBI arrested 77 Nigerians accused of participating in a variety of fraud and money laundering schemes. I am trying to recall the last time I read of over 70 citizens of one nation being held – in one fell swoop – for criminal activities in another country.
I am not sure how much of the online crime market we control, but our people have cornered the romance scam – so much so that in many places it is known as the ‘Nigerian love scam.’
In Italy, Nigerian crime gangs have become controllers of the prostitution and human trafficking business in parts of the country. In Sicily, spiritual homeland of the Mafia and other organised crime legends – they are now acknowledged as key players.
A couple of months ago in nearby Ghana, our people were pointedly being accused of causing a spike in kidnapping cases.
As unacceptable as crime is, people can live with it when the perpetrators are locals. But when foreigners set up shop as crime bosses, all hell is let loose. Imagine for a minute that the Chinese or Ghanaians were the ones running the lucrative kidnapping franchises in Nigeria!
When we emigrate many don’t shed some of our less attractive national traits. So we export our penchant for lawlessness and vulgar exhibitionism to places whose people are more restrained and we stick out like thumbs.
Some of the Nigerians arrested by the FBI were filmed at a party spraying dollar bills like confetti. Net even Warren Buffet or Bill Gates does that!
Nigeria blew her God-given opportunities to build a modern, prosperous nation that could sustain the bulk of its people. A succession of leaders chose to plunder the commonwealth and left a mess that people are fleeing from.
It is not too late to start rebuilding a country that poor, desperate South Africans and others would think of emigrating to. Part of that requires urgent action on how to handle our exploding population.
It is a disgrace that we can’t even conduct an acceptable national census without tying ourselves up in ethnic and political knots. We don’t even have a clue how many we are and have to depend on dubious estimates.
If we cannot grow the economy at a pace that it can cater for the majority, then we have to device means of reining in our reproduction rate.
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