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NIGERIOCRITY
Related to country: Nigeria

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic



To state that ‘Nigeriocrity’ is a synonymous term for the mediocre attitude of a large percentage of Nigerians is a half-truth. Ab initio it was a survival instinct that was supposed to be discarded when that for which it was forged disappeared; but today it has persisted and has become a fashionable way of life.

According to Oxford Advanced Learners dictionary of current English, mediocrity means ‘quality of not being not very good nor very bad; second rate’. What makes a great mass of people accept unconditionally a second place position when they could have clinched the first position? A whole lot of reasons ranging from fear, lack of ambition, listlessness, and racism could be posited, but none succinctly explains Nigeriocrity

Something else explains the complacency with which ‘Nigerians’ accept derogatory conditions when they could aspire for more. What explains rickety commuter buses; half baked graduates; working for months on end without salaries; hospitals without suitably qualified health personnel; education in structures that in minutes may crash on its inhabitants; pot hole decorated roads; enthusiasm to pay more for less; endurance of shylock landlords with uncompleted buildings and exorbitant rents; the wanton display of wealth by elite politicians and military personnel when their subjects languish with smiles under the burden of poverty?

One cannot help but wonder why very few Nigerians commit suicide. For a country that ranks as one of the most corrupt and poorest countries in the world; albeit having many among the richest men in the world, it surprises every keen observer why the great impoverished masses wait. History shows that Nigerian independence was one of the easiest with little blood shed. Unlike in most African countries viz. Algeria, South Africa and Tunisia et al where independence became a reality with a blood bathed struggle for emancipation; Nigeria had hers on a platter of gold.

The problem started then and may forever be with us because we manage today to manage tomorrow, then to our graves leaving nothing save mediocrity. When colonization ended in Nigeria in 1960, Neo colonialism started .it was garbed democracy and championed by the military for over thirty years after which another phase began with the politicians. Yet in all these change nothing changed. All because Nigerians love life so much.

We’ve managed so much that we can’t visualize or appreciate the normal, having internalized the idea of playing second fiddle .We don’t how the real ought to be; hence we settle for less. Nigeriocrity is life at all cost –at low ebb. But what is life? A life salvaged at a cost greater than what life offers is no life. Nigeriocrity as a way of life has failed having stagnated Nigerians over the years. Like all palliatives it ought to have been discarded over the years for a total cure. It is better to suffer once and open for ourselves a whole new better world than to garnish our whole lives with misery on a miserly quest for survival. A survival for which we are eternally enslaved ¬–that is Nigeriocrity


June 9, 2008 | 5:38 PM Comments  0 comments

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