By Denrele Animasaun 
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organised conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe” -Frederick Douglass

Success is earned and so it should be. It takes a long time to be successful and of course, if you are successful, then it is only right that you deserve all trappings that come with your hard work. Nothing comes easy in life and there is no overnight success, it is blood, sweat and toil.

Unless in Nigeria, this process is turned on its head as the majority wants to get rich overnight but not many want to work for it. So get quick schemes are loved by many Nigerians or better still, if they believe in divine intervention to be successful that is even better as long as they do not have to really work hard and so long for success.

There are, however, Nigerians who do work very hard and toil for every kobo and naira they make. These Nigerians are often denied, delayed or withhold payments, some of them have not been paid for months and some for years and yet they are expected to come to work regardless and woe betide them to complain. Only in Nigeria!

And what kind of messages are we sending to those who are hardworking and decent?  Does that mean that work is for suckers?

We have a mentality that we should get rich or die hard trying and we wonder why nothing works in the country. We will get nowhere if we continue to apply the same solutions to our problems and expecting them to be resolved. The mentality of some employers in Nigeria is that employees are undeserving and that they should be grateful if they get paid on time for doing their work! The last time I looked, feudalism no longer applied to anywhere in Nigeria, but then, I must be wrong.

How can people work and not be expected to get paid? They are calling them ungrateful and threatening to sack them from a job that has not paid them in months or in years? Where in the world is this right? This would be funny if it is not wicked.

We are Nigerians and we deserve integrity, to feel valued and above all, respected.  In August this year, I wrote Paralysis by Analysis, regarding the treatment of the Nigerian athletes during the Summer Olympics.

We know how the National team weren’t paid or given adequate support for years and months leading to the games. It seems that nothing has changed there then. Now the Nigerian women’s football team have been given the same treatment.

“These magnificent men and women have been pushed from pillar to post; their journey to the Olympic village has been short of a miracle.They say, if we fail to plan, then we plan to fail. Make of it what you will, but many of the perils and obstacles faced by the athletes could have been avoided if those in charge had learned from past misdeeds and disorganisation”.

So here we are again and the Minister of Youth and Sports, Dalong has the audacity to besmirch our national champions and think it is alright. Time to make some changes in the ministry and the buck should stop with this minister. The members of the House of Representatives have lent their voices and have condemned the “unsavoury treatment” meted to the Super Falcons by the Minister of Youths and Sports, Mr Solomon Dalong, and the Nigerian Football Federation by failing to pay their match bonuses and allowances.

Word finally got to the Presidency and have summoned Dalong and the honchos at the NFF and it directed them to settle the allowances of the players without further delay. While they are at it, can they ask Dalong if he thinks it is right for him to accuse the team of being unpatriotic because they refused to leave their hotel have brought shame to the country, and when in fact, it is Dalong who have disgraced Nigeria and his esteemed office?

Now the House has gone on record and have condemned Dalong and the NFF, saying that their actions brought shame upon Nigeria.

One of the Representatives said when: “has it become a crime to make your country proud? What makes it more painful is the fact that the Cameroonian girls, who came second, were celebrated by their President (Paul Biya). “These girls are not asking for anything extraordinary, but the allowances owed them from the qualifiers till they won the trophy. “What would have happened if the girls had refused to leave Cameroon and carry out the protests on the streets of that country?”

I believe that the member from Edo State, Mr Sergius Ose-Ogun, put it so well when he said that there was something wrong with the Nigerian attitude to things.  He said that in almost every facet of life ” an “evil spirit” seemed to be advising people to do the wrong thing. “It is not only in sports, Mr Speaker. Even in the civil service, workers retire after 35 years and they are not paid their dues. Why did they have to subject these girls to so much pain?

There is an evil spirit in this country, which must die”.

I would not go as far as to blame it on any evil spirit or any spirit of any discription. Let us call a spade a spade, Nigerians are greedy and avaricious.

And before anyone goes for “only God will save Nigeria” or “Nigeria we hail thee”. God has got nothing to do with it and Nigeria is an amazing country, it is its people that need a conscience.

If anything good comes out of this debacle is that workers deserve respect and they should be valued. Our sportsmen and women are incredible people who make the decision to represent the nation and they deserve the support, equipment and resources to put their talent against the best in the world.  The champion of today will inspire the champion of tomorrow so how they are treated will dictate the crop of the future champions

Ponzi Scheme Artists

Telling Nigerians that they can double or triple their money the temptation is too irresistible to turn away.

Some were told by their church and were encouraged to join in and like lemmings, they threw in their money and savings into the scheme.

Now they are in shock because the reality is dawning on them that they may not get to triple their money and they want their money back.  It does not take a genius to know that these get-rich-quick does not work. The pursuit of money is everything in Nigeria and the pyramid scheme has cleaned up and left victims in its wake.

The MMM “investment” scheme froze all its account and it is has left so many in a panic.  The Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox (MMM) scheme describes itself as a peer to peer money exchange, using new investors’ money to pay out dividends promised to earlier participants. In spite of the government’s warnings against it,  of course, this just made many more to invest in Mavrodi Mundial Movement (MMM), a Russian company that was responsible for one of the world’s largest Ponzi schemes of all time.

Why on earth, do seemingly intelligent people, do stupid things like this because of this incessant yearning to be rich regardless of what the financial regulators said.

They reasoned that they just do not want to make so much money even if they were told that in other parts of the world, it brought great financial institutions to their knees and it took years to recover but it damaged many lives and reputations. In finance, success depends on confidence and if the accounts have been frozen then what makes these people think that the scheme, will be back in the next one month, of course, the scheme has told them; “The reason for this measure is evident. We need to prevent problems during the New Year season, and then, when everything calms down, this measure will be cancelled,” the administrator said in a message sent to all members. Ok, I would not hold my breath. Just remember that if it sounds good to be true then experience has shown that it usually is.

This Machiavellian Nigerian –

You get something for nothing but this Nigerian should know by now; ‘there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’. This does not bother this Nigerian, he/she feels he is entitled to take without giving and that there is always something to be had, and the quicker the reward, the better and all for nothing. So what if he becomes rich at the risk of making other people poor? That is mere details to this Nigerian, it has always been about self-interests and his own self-aggrandisement. As we see, this Machiavellian Nigerian, is a master manipulator, a charmer, a player, a pathological liar warms his way into the corridors of power, he changes sides so many times as long as it suits his agenda, quite deceptive, calculating, conniving, he thrives on making others miserable, in fact he revels in it, he likes adulation, he has to be the centre of attention, he lacks morals or conscience and always justifies his nefarious behaviour and activities when caught, he reasons that if people allowed themselves to be used and abused, then, so be it. To him, his mantra is: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” This Nigerian is a pyromaniac and he lights the fireworks where there are friendship and unity and then runs to watch the combustion, he is a fiend in fine clothing

He/she takes delight in spreading lies and disunity as long as it serves his own interests. Take your pick; you properly know this Nigerian or you are one. Then you join the ranks of Dansuki, Kanu, Diezani Allison-Madueke, Bashir Yuguda, Stephen Oronsaye, Alhaji Maina, Nkechi Ejele and Femi Fani-Kayode. When you come across this Nigerian, know that they only want you for what they will get from you and if you think that you will get something for nothing, then, you are naive or you are this Nigerian. I assure you there is a place for this Nigerian; they are ambitious and driven. The trouble is, there are too many of them in Nigeria!