Not too long ago a battle surfaced on twitter between David Hundeyin and faux elitists, several days after that I got into a hot argument with my close friend on the causative agent of poverty in Nigeria, to him it was the laziness of the poor that were responsible for their state. Now this was a friend who was born into poverty, though not yet rich but was 70% sure of becoming better than his peers due to fact that he was soon to be settled in the normal Igbo apprenticeship style.
This point of his, I found out was common among Nigerians who felt their hustle and hard work only had given them their money. Not too displace the importance of hardwork and smart work on becoming rich or wealthy, there also exists a factor called the birth lottery. A major determinant of success in life is to which parents, and the country you were born in. A fulani kid born into a life of cow herding has less chance of being successful in life than a kid born to successful parents except by some twist of fate it happens. A kid whose childhood is spent in the forest with little or no chance of education, will be looked down on by the lekki kids as unkempt, dirty and generally a nuisance to the society because by some generous twist of fate they were born to middle class parents who changed second hand cars once in two years.
I was given a 2020 new year advice on the eve of the year. The entire moral lesson of the advice was since i was inside my house on new year’s day and not enjoying outside with my peers I was sure to be rich. Till today that idea makes me laugh anytime I remember it. It was given by a someone who was relatively successful but had the view that to being successful was to suffer, I mean SUFFER not working hard and he never missed the opportunity to inflict the suffering on his apprentices to reinforce his ideas. This attitude of his had alienated many people who plain called him wicked, even people more successful than him.
Apparently in Nigeria you being poor is a factor of your laziness, the belief echoes everywhere, from the pastor who says the cause of your poverty was you were not born again to the one who says you are not praying the right way, the average southerner will be quick to the insult the almajiri for begging money instead of advocating for ways to end this scourge without taking cognizance of the fact that that is all the poor almajiri kid has known since birth . This belief affects the way we give charity in our society. Its why we prefer to keep on blessing pastors with multiple jets while railing about the increase in joblessness among our youths. its the reason why pastors preach only about individual help but forget that problems are tackled better as a group than individual. The stats are there to prove it, now matter how we “hustle” in this country, No matter the amount of people starting their own business the poverty rate will keep on increasing. No man is truly an island!!. we rise by helping others !!!
It’s the reason why many advocate for a ban on okada in Lagos and then become surprised when the level of crime increases. It is why the poor voted for a dictator, cause when the going was good during Jonathan’s regime how many efforts were made to distribute the wealth fairly. A man bought a property worth 250 million naira but his two sales girl who had slaved for him for more than 5 years were still being paid salaries of 20,000 naira for working from Mondays to Saturday from 8pm till the lord decides.
During the 2019 election, a poor man was asked why he voted for Buhari, his response?, Buhari was affecting everyone both rich and poor simultaneously. We are running to Canada and other countries, but there is no place like home the wind of anti immigration will still reach those places, if we don’t as a populace come together to find a solution to the problems beguiling us as a nation the results on us and our children will be disastrous.
