We should learn to take responsibility for our actions and failings, argues JOSHUA J. OMOJUWA
The original refrain is, “Warri no dey carry last”, but I have seen it applied to Nigeria in many situations. When you look at our sporting records, you’d see we have generally lived up to it. Take AFCON, in apparent commitment to not finishing last, we mostly finish third and sometimes, second. Champions only thrice, despite rarely not making the last four. Even at the Olympics, the Nigerian hardly finishes last. The problem is, they hardly finish first too. That is where the problem lies.
A country of 200 million people that isn’t known to dominate any sport in the world speaks to a collective commitment to mediocrity more than it does anything else. The real tragedy is, we think we are all that. We think we are the smartest in the room just so we can be the loudest. We end up being on the receiving end of wrong perceptions for crimes that other nationals make far bigger ends from. That attitude, the thinking that we are smarter than others, is a recipe for repeatedly getting fooled by those who know how to play on that cognitive weakness. It is one of the reasons Ponzi schemes find a fertile ground in our country.
A sizeable portion of our population have a poor relationship with taking responsibility for their actions. Even the illiterates in our midst are quick to know and speak to their rights, however, a lot of even the enlightened and literate aren’t acquainted with the fact that these rights travel in tandem with responsibilities. That is the reason why someone who lost their money to the latest Ponzi scam will look to the mirror and only see the government staring back at them. What is it with people and not, at least at first, picking their own faults in their own failings?
Greed isn’t big enough an elephant in the room. That I have left it a little late here isn’t because I think it should not be mentioned. I simply preferred to leave the most obvious late. Most people who put their money in Ponzi schemes like CBEX do so knowing that it will crash, but they do so hoping that they are the early beneficiaries who won’t have to bear the weight of the crash. They know that their expected gains will be other people’s losses. If you didn’t mind making a kill, you should not mind being game for another. And when whilst hoping to be the predator you end up being the prey, your first reaction should not be to blame anyone but yourself. You knew the rules of the game, you got involved despite that, lost out and instead of looking within, you instead are crying out looking for who to blame.
When you carry last, look within. When you find that you are involved with every other Ponzi scheme, please do not look within. That’d be pointless. You are a greedy person who must learn to lick their wound quietly. It is okay to learn your lesson from experience once, if you choose not to learn from other people’s experience. To have several experiences and still choose not to learn is to be the model candidate, a willing tool in the hands of people much smarter than you. You are them; they are you. They aren’t in anyway more criminal; they just have more mental range and possibly more opportunity to deploy their evil mechanisms. You are both looking to make a killing out of other people’s sweat. Tough love, but it is what it is.
I believe most Nigerians are law abiding citizens. Sadly though, the unwholesome elements in our midst are substantial enough to affect our way of life and the way we are perceived by others. Take the NELFUND loans and its obvious intention to bridge the gap between willing students and access to education. The DG of the much-revamped National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, was on a TV programme earlier this week. According to him, the NOA, using one of its feedback mechanisms, discovered that some institutions had found a way to cheat students off the NELFUND loans. In some cases, they fix the money at the bank to make some profit and in even worse situations, have the students paying directly or miss exams completely. Some schools, according to the NOA, are even charging students a processing fee for the loan.
This is in line with the same sense of greed where people are always looking to game the system or cheat others. This attitude is what inspired the popularity of Ponzi schemes in our culture. In the same breath, those same people will blame the government for what it is not doing. The one they are doing, this is what people are doing with it; denying students access to what government already made provisions for.
I was reading The Explainer, a weekly publication of the NOA, and there I found out elements of a few government policies not captured in the news. The NELFUND loans are an essential element in our education reforms. Those who ought to learn about these developments will spend their day scrolling through Tiktok, feeding their brains dopamine that have zero use to their lives beyond the immediate reward social media gives them.
Naija no dey carry last, that’s true. But how is that a big deal? There are over 200 countries and territories around the world, you only need to appear, most times you wouldn’t finish last. Especially when you are a country of 200 million people with many talents to potentially call in. We need to aspire a lot higher. What about finishing first or at least always aspiring to? What about learning to take responsibility for our actions and failings? There has been one successful Ponzi scheme too many. There are obvious gaps in our system that allows for that, that’s on government. That goes without saying. You being a victim again? That’s on you. You don carry last because you are too wise.
Omojuwa is chief strategist, Alpha Reach/BGX publishing
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