@I get your point though, which is "lets prop up our country rather than bashing her all the time."


that wasnt my point.My point is nigeria isnt the lawless place people say it is.
I understand how th numbers work and wasnt looking solely the raw numbes. What i was saying is that if zimbabw has 20 milion people and 1 million rapes, and nigeria has 100 million people and 1 milion rapes, zim is much worse.


Go back and look at the per capita murder rates. It changes, but the same countries still occupy the main positions. Nigeria isn tthere to be found. colombi, south africa are at the top, then jamaica.

My impressive of nigeria is borne out my experince and th numbers that i read. I havent got the impression that the place is as lawles as claime. It can and should be much better, but i've been put in greater danger by police in america more times, then police in nigeria.

I dont know how you figure i didnt address your points head n. i went through them one by one

Statistics are like a bikini - what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital!

i am yet to read all the comments, but i applaud the contributions of everyone. in particular, thanks to the editor who mailed me this link.

my own input is this: i do not agree with the tone this thread started with. if anything, nigeria is in arguably the best point it has ever been in its independence. in fact, the title should be: Nigeria on the Brink of Lawfulness. Cant people see the outstanding actions our dear President Obasanjo has been making to bring progress to Nigeria and Africa in general? See, today many things that would otherwise have been covered are being revealed. But everyone thinks it's only Obasanjo that must solve every problem.

There is nothing wrong in discussing our problems. But let's do so in a positive optimistic manner. I will always react to someone to preaches hopelessness and doom. And i have found that this is often preached by people who are currently outside nigeria. Are you trying to justify your reason for running away?

bioye:

...There is nothing wrong in discussing our problems. But let's do so in a positive optimistic manner. I will always react to someone to preaches hopelessness and doom. And i have found that this is often preached by people who are currently outside nigeria. Are you trying to justify your reason for running away?

Sir, hold your horses before you over the cliff...isn't it possible to have a decent conversation on this forum? So the only conclusion you can reach, particularly those of us that have refused not to "settle" for the Nigerian mediocrity, is that we ran away from Nigeria? Do your research first, then discuss later.

Nigeria is sure improving, great- but we are still deep in the woods- so why start rejoicing? I and many of us here did not ran away from Nigeria, we love Nigeria and we leave for Nigeria in a heart beat, all things being equal.

Accept my apologies if i was provocative. Maybe I react once in a while while discussing National issues. But Nigeria's issues are serious ones anyways. I am aware there are many a people who reside outside the country but still care about its progress and future. But once in a while, there are some who just preach doom and dont really care.

Nigeria is riddled with corruption and lawlessness. This is not new. It has been acquired over the past 45 years. And with subsequent democracies, I believe the problems can be dealt with successfully. I do not except anybody to start proclaiming doom at this juncture.

My 2 kobo..

I hereby rate this thread as the best thread on Nairaland, in terms of relaying facts and figures, and tackling the topic in question objectively. Well Thats how matured people communicate in forums and I hope other Nairalanders could learn from it. "Goodness I need a panadol, too many oyinbo dey fly for this thread."

I signed on to this website just to respond to the views of some of us on the statement credited Prof. Chinua Achebe about Nigeria's situation.
My main concern here is about what I may call a typical Black man's culture of self deceit and lies. It seems to me that part of our greatest set backs is our cowardly attitudes towards challenges. The main ways our people usually face failures and difficulties have been by denying and pretending they are not there. For instance, typical Africans do not like to face the realities that death is inescapable. It is also very common to find the poorest of the poor spending money to wear good dresses on festive periods simply to project the false image that they are not the most worse of.

This primitive attitude has not gone with history. It is still here with us in this 21st century. A typical Nigerian who cannot afford a decent living would strive to buy a mobile phone, either real or toy, simply to show that he is not the poorest. Most unfortunately however, Nigerians privillaged to be in Europe or America still carry this primitive attitude of self deceit and denial of global facts with them.

I believe that Nigerians in diaspora can contribute meaningfully in the emergence of a new Nigeria only if they can begin to face the reality that Nigeria as it is today is disgusting and disgracefull. Nigeria is a reality of the Black man's failure and failure to acknowledge this global would be most disastrous for us all. As far as Iam concerned, every Black man should be ashamed of Nigeria. There is nothing good about Nigeria... Nothing whatsoever! I challenge anyone to mention one good thing about his so-called country Nigeria... and please leave out the issue of how many successful Nigerian individuals in America or elsewhere not just because it is stupid to say that Nigerian individuals can only succeed outside Nigeria, but because we need to begin to distinguish indiviodual and group successes to understand where we are. I have written in the past that the Black race has succeeded as individuals but failed as a group. That is the reality of Nigeria and we must discard our primitive perceptions to appreciate it before it gets out of hand.

save your racist "typicalities." The black man is like this and the black man is like that?!

We are facing our problems square on, but refuse to believe the place is full of sh*t as achebe makes it out to be. when was the last time he was in nigeria

I've just checked Obong's profile for his age. It is a shame we have people like him who claim to be enlightened. Sorry, it seems I'm indulging on a personal attack like him, but his perceptions are ultimately sick and primitive. I say primitive because any Nigerian who lives in a civilised society like the US who sees progress in Nigeria and tries to justify or defend its failure is ultimately conceding to the notion that the Black man is inferior. He is impliedly saying justifying a lower level of attainment or standard of life for Black people.
As I have just written him, only rogues and idiots see progress in Nigeria. The rogues are those who percieve progress in terms of personal gains while the rogues are those who blindly defend what they probably know nothing about. Perhaps, the greatest problem with Nigeria is idiocy because majority of our opinion leaders though world class intellectuals are ignorant because they believe solely in thier text book knowledge.
They read about Nigeria from white men and interprete national development in line with histories of great countries of europe. Such people easily retort that every nation passes through hard times and sometimes would even bluff that UK was like Nigeria.
This to my mind constitute a major clog to our progress because the starting point for a new Nigeria would be the emergence of indigenous socio-political philosophies...
We must begin to look inwards to find out the missing links in Nigeria and other failed Black states...
We must begin to tell ourselves the truth. Those who are ashamed of washing their dirty linens in public must wake up to the reality that everyone already knows that Nigeria is a disgrace and a symbol of Black failure so, there is nothing to hide, really from anyone. Rather the world is waiting to see us wake up!

John, why is your entire style about attacks? first you attack all black people, then you turn to call me primitive. you even send me a private email just to insult me. Man, you're funny sha.

For my Dear Obong, I did not mean to attack your person, but I find it difficult to understand why some Nigerians who are supposedly enlightened chose to shy away from the realities our disaster. Perhaps, you need to live in Nigeria without any government influence or connection at all to appreciate Nigeria is a misfortune. I have once opined that a dog in Britain is better than a professor in Nigeria and I am very sure of this because a dog in Britain enjoys some rights and protections under the law. The only people who enjoy reasonable protection of their rights including the most essential right to live in Nigeria are those associated and or in the good books of the power that be. Recent events have confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that there is only one man who decides who gets what when and how in Nigeria irrespective of what the dodgy constitution says and that man is whoever occupies the ASo rock.
Its most unfortunate that some people take every criticism of Nigeria as personal attacks on them or their kins man in power, but we need to understand that facing the facts about our fairlure is not about Obasanjo or whoever might have been there. Its about the need for looking within and being honest to ourselves.
I appreciate some commentators who have narrowed things down to their state government because our states and local governments are probably the foundations of our hopelessness. I don't know how much Obong knows about Nigeria today, but I wish to inform him that the poorest state government for e.g Ebony state receives about a billion each month plus the regular oil surplus revenues usually shared among them, yet in more than 6 years, the civilian regime has not marched in any way Gen. Abacha's developmental strides. What the governors are busy doing is buying houses abroad usually through the connivance of some dubious Nigerians in Europe and America. We must not forget that Nigeria has since the last 5 - 6 years become 10 times richer than it was in more than 20 years. Please, check your facts about oil revenues under Abacha and the achievements in comparison with the present situation. Because the whitemen has told us that democracy is the best thing we tend to think that everything in agbada is good for us...
I

Listen, stop making statements with no eivdence to support them. explain to me how nigeria has become 10 times richer in the last 6 years than in the last 20. Stop exaggerating to make your point. Post a link here to support some of your assertions.

and you are right, you don;t know what i know about nigeria. At least its good to see you admit to one thing

umm, while i find this thread an interesting read, I must note something disturbing. . .

essentially, the question posted which starts this thread is a rhetorical one, Nigeria's problems are large enough that we should treat is as a viable threat to the future stability of our country.

I can understand the need to defend the country and correctly indicate that we don't have it as bad as others think or as bad as others do, however, unless I'm mistaken, this is moving away from the original intent of the thread.

The original intent was to acknowledge that Nigeria has serious problems and propose solutions. Arguing the relative violence or lawlessness of Nigeria to other countries in similar or worse situations seems stupid to me.

If I have two very rotten apples in my fridge, I do not weigh the relative rotteness of the two to decide which to eat, I simply throw them both away.

THis thread has been locked, pending review by our moderators. Volunteer moderators, arbitrators and mediators are invited to join our team!

Opened!!

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obong:
save your racist "typicalities." The black man is like this and the black man is like that?!

We are facing our problems square on, but refuse to believe the place is full of sh*t as achebe makes it out to be. when was the last time he was in nigeria

With what has happened these years and is still happening, I believe we can well say that Achebe was a prophet.