Ebuka Obi-Uchendu: Nigeria in their eyes… (YNaija FrontPage)

I spent the better part of last week with a lot of non-Nigerians at the World Economic Forum and I always like to use that as an opportunity to sample international perceptions of my dear country. It helped a lot that there was a large African contingent there, which for me is usually better. Other Africans are close enough to Nigeria not to be too influenced by the international media. But they are also far away enough from Nigeria to have a non-Nigerian perspective.

Interestingly, the first few people I asked seemed to have very positive things to say about Nigeria. Words like; ‘extremely enterprising’, ‘entrepreneurial’, ‘hard working’, ‘intelligent’ and ‘resourceful’; were thrown around by the Ghanaian, Tunisian and South African I had a conversation with. The overriding theme was basically about the never say die spirit of the Nigerian. What caught my attention was the one thing they had in common with us. Nigerians always say; “If you go anywhere around the world and you don’t find a Nigerian, leave.” Turns out, that’s a popular saying in all of their countries.

The Ghanaian talked about how he tries to keep a lot of Nigerian friends in Accra seeing that he gets to learn a lot from them on a daily basis. He complained about the average Ghanaian’s very slow attitude to money and blamed it on the constant push by their leaders for conformity instead of encouraging people to think outside the box. At one of the sessions with African Heads of State, they needed a few young people to ask a question. I stood up and threw the first one at the 5 heads of state present. Later on, people came to me to thank me for asking a good question. The Ghanaian said, “I almost asked a question too”. We both laughed and he said; “That’s Ghana’s problem. We think it but lack the will power to follow through. The Nigerian never holds back.”

There was a lot of talk about the social scene in Nigeria too. They particularly loved the nightlife in Lagos and actually agreed with ‘Banky W’ that there “Ain’t no party like a Lagos party.” Well, even I had to agree with them after spending a night out in Addis Ababa and listening to the club DJ play American music mostly from the last decade, with club patrons spending an average of N2000 per person; a clear departure from the champagne life in Lagos.

But no, it wasn’t all positive feedback. I met a Kenyan and threw the same question at her and she started; “I once visited Malaysia with a group of Kenyans on a business conference. One day we stood on the road and waited for a taxi. The cabs would slow down to pick us up. Then upon getting to us, they would speed off. This happened for almost an hour and we couldn’t understand why. At some point, I thought it was because we were black. Eventually, one of the taxis stopped and as soon as we got in, we had to ask the driver why no one had agreed to pick us up all this while; and he said it was because they thought we were Nigerians. Turns out Nigerians in that country have a habit of going into taxis and leaving without paying. That was my first impression of Nigeria and it has unfortunately stuck with me ever since”

I know there is a large Nigerian population in Malaysia so it was pretty easy for me to believe her. I went on this long explanation about how there were too many Nigerians to go round. With 160 million resident at home alone and an equally large population in the Diaspora, all it took was for 1 million Nigerians to be bad and the entire population’s reputation was ruined. Not minding the fact that 1 million represents less than 1% of the population. As much as a lot of them recognized the fact that our population is our biggest asset, it was obvious that the negatives that come with it can also be a huge problem.

Talk about Nigeria’s infrastructure couldn’t be avoided either. Many complained about our international airport, the roads and traffic in Lagos and of course power; all issues Nigerians complain about too. There is no doubt that these issues need to be fixed because all it takes is a one-day visit to the country and you would have experienced all of the above. No amount of international posturing and marketing can hide the fact that a lot of these things don’t work back home.

The biggest point I got from all the talk is that the Nigerian people are a positive. They give other Africans hope for the continent and really do inspire a lot of them. Government’s inability to perform their duty on the other hand is our biggest problem. That is the reason why infrastructure is non-existent. That is the reason why there’s overriding poverty, which then leads to people running out of the country and getting involved with desperate measures in foreign countries jut to get by. Hopefully one day, we will wake up to a government that recognizes where its strength lies, and decides to harness it properly. Hopefully…

 

Editor’s note: Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

Comments (9)

  1. Wow. I'm actually surprised to hear you were eager to hear what other africans had to say. It is my experience that they harbour a huge margin for bias owing to so much resentment and jealousy and perhaps embarrassment that they feel towards Nigerians. Non-African Foreigners tend to be more polite and less biased…I think However, your observation seems to prove that they might have become a little more objective.

  2. Wonderful piece, great nation good people. ILOVE NIGERIA

  3. Nice wan dia bro, trust me the Nigerians performing those stunts in Malaysia are true born Warfi boys, or people who have affiliated with Warfii people. it is called Drop and Sky.

  4. Great piece. It always brings a huge feeling of excitement when I am constantly reminded of the resilient nature of the average Nigerian man/woman. It makes me keep the hope alive.

  5. @Andie I wanted to know when they would exit the stage for young African leaders to take over…

  6. Very well written Ebuka, with hopefulness and honesty. The beauty and the shameful challenges of Nigeria.

    Great piece!

  7. So proud of you,Ebuka. I believe that if our nation begins to actually work,most of these negatives will reduce to the barest minimum cos it's a simple web. Poverty,power instability,lack of infrastructure,poor roads and laissez_faire attitude of our leaders to all these are our problems.

    I wonder if the powers that be actually read all these intelligent articles,because if they do and still choose to turn a deaf ear,we have a long way to go.

    We have hope though,after all,as you rightly said,we are positive people and blessed with never-die spirit.

    Welcome back.

  8. Am I the only one curious to know what question you asked the African Heads of State?

  9. I see u hobnobin with d cabal. Welcome back. I hope u told dem these things wen u met dem

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