By Ebele Orakpo

NIGERIANS  are bad,” commented Ben, stressing the letter ‘a’ in bad for emphasis. “God really blessed us with brains and brawn but we seem to be applying our brains negatively. Can’t we emulate those who use theirs to improve the lot of humanity like inventions?”

“What do you mean?” asked Peter, obviously pained by the outburst of a fellow Nigerian. “So you are one of those who never see anything good in this country. For your information, every nation has the good, the bad and the ugly but we seem to be blowing our own bad side out of proportion.

Let me tell you something, Nigeria’s bad image abroad is a creation of the print and electronic media. It is what the outside world  reads and hears about Nigeria that forms their opinion about the country.”

“Oh  please stop. What do you mean it’s the creation of the media? These guys are simply doing their job of informing, educating and entertaining,” Obi pointed out.

“Sure, but they should do it with all sense of responsibility,” noted Rita. “Nigerians are not as bad as other nationals and Nigeria  is not as crime-riddled as some places I know.

Simply because a few bad eggs exist among us does not make every Nigerian a bad egg. Are all Colombians drug barons? Are all Americans drug addicts? Are all Arabs terrorists? Hell, No! We are not worse than those people but their media don’t go about telling the world how bad their people are.

I laugh when I hear about Nigerians caught with two kilograms of cocaine or heroine. That is child’s play compared to what Colombian or Mexican traffickers carry. They carry theirs in jute bags so tell me, who is more dangerous? The fact remains that Nigeria is still an amateur in the field of crime.

The world has gone digital in the area of crime while Nigeria is still in the analogue stage.

We are yet to catch up. After all, the Oyibos taught us and some day, we will surpass them,” submitted Rita.

Said Nkem: “The western world knows how to protect their own. Someone once asked the western press to be fair in their reports on Nigeria. He wondered why they should always look for the negative things about us while leaving out the great achievements of Nigerians in their countries.

He cited the example of the 15-year-old Nigerian girl who flew solo across the US last year. They labelled her African-American; also a Nigeria guy doing very well in rugby, he is American but once it is evil report, the person involved is quickly labelled Nigerian.”

“But of course they are US citizens,” replied Josh.

“I know, but they have their roots in Nigeria. Look at Mutallab’s case; they were quick to label him Nigerian despite the fact that he grew up mostly in the West and acquired his terrorism skills in the Middle East. Is that fair? I am not saying we are not bad but we are not as bad as they paint us.

There is no human being that is 100 percent evil and none is 100 percent good. What I am saying is that as we are talking about the evils in the society, we should also talk about the good things going on. As we talk about the fraudsters, we should talk about the thousands of honest, hardworking people,” stated Nkem.

“I think most of the evil being perpetrated here is as a result of poverty. Can you imagine somebody travelling hundreds of miles to the city just to go and carry placard  in support of a politician and at the end of the day, he is given N500? That is poverty, pure and simple,” said Nkem.

“Abeg forget those people. It is not just poverty. I see it as laziness. If they had doing something  like carrying goods for traders in the market for a fee, they won’t have the time for one selfish politician to engage them in a useless venture and pay them N500 at the end of the day,” stated Peter.

“A friend told of how her mom and other women were recruited from their village to the city to go and carry placards in support of a politician. The husband was not in support but she had to go because they were promised some money. On their way back, they had an accident and she broke her leg.

The hospital asked for N50,000 deposit before they would treat her and the husband asked her to bring the money she was given. Lo and behold, she was given only N500 and she went home with over N50,000 injury plus the pains,” recounted Ben.