Corruption in Nigeria is so vast that it is already in our blood, everybody is corrupt in Nigeria and so it has affected out integrity, nowadays even brothers don't trust their brothers anymore, we've seen employees trying to outsmart their employers and we've also seen employers trying to underpay their employers for their efforts, This and other thoughts is the reason i decided to write about this topic.

Let me start with my own personal experience so you can know where exactly i am coming from and what pointed me to write about this, this is a topic that has been in our faces for a long time but nobody wants to really address or talk about it.

There was a time in my life that i was busy, so busy that i was making some money but it was not enough for my needs, I needed to make some more money aside on a weekly basis, i decided to invest on something, something that will be bringing in money and I will not have to be there physically, i got an idea when i was on ride on an okada during one of my running arounds, i asked the okada man if he was the owner of the okada which he replied 'no', he further explained to me that most okada men we see on the streets don't own their bikes, they either collect it from the real owner to pay back in installments or just work and give the owner some amount of money weekly, he told me they call it deposits, i asked him how much and he said it varies, some pay N7000, some N7500 and some N8000, i made a mental calculation that if you have five bikes you can expect to make N35,000 in a week and it sounds fair to me, i asked him how much a bike costs and he told me you can get a second hand bike for a N100,000 or less that it depends on the standard and i said ok , For some reason i could not shake that conversation i had with the random okada man, i thought i had found what I've been looking for, making some money aside and blessing some unknown family by employing their bread winner, i know okada riders make lots of money and depositing 1000 daily is not supposed to be a problem because i myself sometimes give okada men 500 or more so they should be able to make up to N5000 daily and after depositing the suppose 1000 they can take care of their family with the rest and other stuffs.

I explained the idea to my GF and she liked it, she further told me that she knows a trusted okada man (her personal okada man) that can help us take care of the bikes so i would really not need to stress myself. i had a chat with the "egbon" and he gave me assurances, he said i should not worry that he will take care of things and that he has lots of boys that will be happy to ride the okada and pay deposits, one thing i noticed was that he was repeatedly telling me to take the installment option which i said no, that I'm not intending to sell off the bikes that i just want to use them to make some money aside, i asked him how much he wants to be compensated with or what he stands to gain and he told me he wants nothing that i can give him anything after he help me buy the bikes, i decided to give him the extra 1000 from bikes while i will be pocketing 6000 on each bike, so he will be making 5000 from 5 bikes and i will making 30000 but i did not tell him yet.

I then decided to start with one bike to learn how things work, he got a guy to ride it, the guy will come in the morning to pick up the bike and return it at night with the daily deposit of N1000 to the "egbon's" house then he will gather the whole money for the week and hand it over to me on Sundays, i will collect N6000 from him and give N1000 for his own stress.

To cut the story short i bought 2 more to make it 3 and that was when trouble started, the egbon started cooking up lies upon lies just not to complete the N18,000 weekly deposits, every week something must happen, either accidents or arrests or a sickness and i was not happy, not because of the money but how everything was being run, it later became clear to me that the guy was all out for his own pocket, he has been going around telling people that he was the owner of those bikes of which i didn't care about what he was saying about but those people were expecting him to be rich being the controller and owner of 3 bikes plus his personal own making 4, the guy decided to not work anymore, anytime i call him he will either say he is at home chilling or at a ogogoro joint drinking, i didn't care at first but it dawned on me soon that the guy was living on my sweat, i became fed up and decide to sell off the bikes, then another problem surfaced, the bikes that he was always praising when there were in his possession calling them high standards and all became trash in his eyes, he was bad mouthing them so i won't expect him to be able to sell them close to the amount i bought them, i didn't care he finally sold them for N70,000 each, i didn't want to believe him but there was nothing i could do, the funniest part to me was that the person that used to run to me for anything before made me an enemy all of a sudden because i decided not to be cheated on anymore, anytime he sees me he always has a funny look on his face and i know that if i was not nice to him before he would've sent some boys to beat me up for dropping him from his high horse.



This experience made me not to trust anyone anymore and any business that i would not be able to monitor myself i will not do, a very close friend of mine later told me about a pig business at the biggest pig market in west Africa somewhere around Abule Egba to Sango but i told him no just because i cannot monitor it myself and i do not know anything about pigs, even though he told me that his dad will be the one in charge, the old me would have invested in the business but i could not stand being cheated on anymore by anybody.



Now back to the topic, Nigerians are always ready to abuse any relative that is abroad or the ones in high places for not helping them but it is because they cannot be trusted, Nigerians have very low moral standard and they do not care whose money it is they will just continue spending without care, i know of a man that his sister sent him money from Europe to help build a house instead he built his own house and bought himself a car, he was living the life with his sister's money while she was in the cold in Europe hustling for money, he wasn't able to finish her own building with the little money left, when she came back she saw what he did and was very unhappy, it was this same brother going around the area and bad mouthing his sister saying she is greedy and she sent him peanut while expecting him to build a mansion for her.

This and other experiences have made me realize and come to a conclusion that people and most especially Nigerians cannot be trusted with anything, if you cannot make out time to monitor that project or business or any other thing you should be careful who you choose to be your eyes and ears, and the funniest thing is that they will be the one saying people refuse to help them and also that their people abroad are useless.



Thank you for making out time to read this long thought of mine, hope you've learnt one or two things. If you've had any experience that is similar to mine share it with us so we can learn from it.



Thank you

O.O

Anyone ?