NIGERIA : A NATION OF CYNICS

It is one of the Murphy's Law of Life that if something must go wrong, it must invariably go wrong; but in Nigeria, it seems everything that comes from the government must go wrong. An average Nigerian never expects any good thing to come from the government be it Federal, State or Local; hence, he or she either maintains Sit-down and look, and or the cynic posture.

This perhaps accounts for the lethargy of the electorates during the electoral process: an average Nigeria electorates, mostly the elites either do not take part in the electoral process; and or see the election time as an opportunity to get his or her share of the national cake by demanding for money and monetary compensation before casting his or her ballots. 

The cynics posture has even be elevated to a philosophical and intellectual level such that among the academia, the phrase - Nigerian factor is a common lexicon.  It is woven among the erroneous but potent belief that no matter how lofty a public policy irrespective of typologies - distributive or redistributive, regulatory or self-regulatory, substantive or procedural, and or policies in form of public or private goods; it is bound to fail as far as the Nigeria State is concerned and irrespective of its previous successes in order climes.  

The question that agitates my mind today is the prospect of our collective amnesia being a product of our realities as a nation and as a people. Methinks, if as a man thinks so he is; is there not a possibility that as a people think, so they are? After all, there is a validated theory in Psychology called Self-fulfilling Prophecy. 

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. 

Source: Wikipedia 

Perhaps, because we always believe that things should go wrong, hence, our country has continued to merry-go-round on a spot. Maybe, that is why our leaders often failed in offices. This is because sometimes one cannot but wonder how quick people with good intentions end up doing badly when they get to offices. Perhaps, we have positioned them to fail through our collective thoughts. 

I wish it were possible for us all or a large proportion of us to project positive thoughts and expectations towards our leaders and governmental policies for a day, a week, a month and or even a year, and see if things we turn out differently and positively. Yes I know, it is a herculean task, but I wish you could decide to do that not minding if someone else will do the same or not. 

Similar to this issue is our sense of entitlement. It is natural for man to crave for possession but excessiveness of everything is an aberration. Our sense of entitlement in this part of the world has been taken to a greater level such that people covet and compete for what is not theirs. 

Employees see the profit of organization as his or her rightful

own having collected his bargained salary or wages. You go to an ATM machine especially in the night, the security believes he is entitled to his own share at least for watching over you while you withdraw. Junior staff expects palm greasing from their superiors every Friday. Hence, the cliche Thank God is Friday in Nigeria offices. 

Politicians and members of the public hold public figures to ransom at events and public places demanding their own share of the national cake. You board a bike, the bike man is expecting you to forget or leave the change for him. Same is through of the conductors and drivers. You go to a car wash, the guys washing the vehicles expect you to drop something.

At home, is not different, you send a young person message, he or she expects you not to ask for the change. This is a wrong psyche we must all purge ourselves of if we are to move forward as a nation and people.