Drugs and Scams: Has the Nigerian Society Betrayed its Youths? (1)

In my previous blog, I explored possible reasons Nigerian youths are increasingly engaging in drug trafficking and in scams, whether internet, romance fraud, identity fraud or outright scam. I opined that abject poverty, which ravages the country, is the major reason for this scam. But my friend begged to differ with my view. 

"My own opinion is that most Nigerians are always conscious of money", she wrote me. Then she thundered on, "we would always blame poverty for every selfish act of individuals who are so greedy and lazy to labour for their own money". She was right. Because she's a twenty-one year old female. And she's working, making her own money. To show me that most Nigerians engage in crimes out of sheer greed and not due to lack of choice, she told a true story. 

"I read a story of a woman who operates a big restaurant that suddenly ran mad after confessing how she uses water from corpses to prepare her meals, just to attract customers and then seize their destinies and fortunes, all because of money". This was somehow funny. But it's a common occurrence in a country where most  strongly believe in witchcraft and  superstition. And whether she was saying the truth? In the affirmative. 

Then she gave her answer to the question I asked in my last blog - Drugs and Scams: Are Nigerians Guilty or Not Guilty?  According to my fiery friend, "It's obvious that drug peddlers are not actually poor individuals but people that are not contented with what they have".  And she was somehow right. Most drug peddlers are not first timers. These are people who have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in the business. Most scammers are not poor too. Scam needs investment and seed capital, just like other legitimate businesses. And these fraudsters and scammers are able to source for these capitals. How about investing them legitimately? 

To scam, a lot of preparations and plans have to go into it. It includes bribing security officials and financial institutions. It involves paying people of various nationals to act as either a colleague, a brother, a satisfied customer, a courier agent or even a business partner. So a mega scam requires mega capital and investments. And these Nigerians are able to foot that. 

They don't easily strike an objective observer as people suffering gruesome poverty. So are they guilty or not guilty? My friend minced no words. "Nigerians are guilty of every single act of corruption you can think of". Seriously, I can think of many: rape, terrorism, kidnapping, militancy, armed robbery, fraud, scam, assassination, prostitution, embezzlement etc. 

However, studies show that Nigerians have not always been that way. And as Nigerian Minister of Finance and the Coordinating  Minister for the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala puts it: 99.9 percent of Nigerians are honest, hard working citizens who just want to get of with their lives. The former World Bank executive had told Christina Amanpour of CNN. 

This means that only 0.01 percent of Nigerians engage in crimes. Is she right? Definitely. She is. My friend above is a Nigerian. I'm a Nigerian too. And thousands of Nigerian youths I have met personally are angry and fed up with the negative publicity their nation gets and the biased treatments they receive at every airport and public places abroad on account of crimes committed by few compatriots. 
Nigeria's Finance Minister stated that her government is working hard to provide a better life for all Nigerians. And do Nigerian youths have a choice other than crimes? My lady friend (not the Minister, but the one above) fired in, "Yea (sic)there are many choices for (the) youths". And in her characteristic Nigerian swagger, she added. "That is if they are eager to find the way". It's true that poverty lives side by side with humans in Nigeria. It's true too that the Nigerian youth has few choices to make a legitimate earning. But should they engage in crime? No. Most Nigerians are against crime. Most Nigerians put food on their tables sans crime.

Owing that most Nigerians who go the crime way are not entirely poor, but overly greedy, as established above. What is the fundamental source of this greed? I, personally, like getting to the root of issues. I do not subscribe to cosmetic approach to issues where solution is concentrated on the effect and not on the cause. One reason I believe the war on drugs is a complete waste of human and financial resources. But I have digressed. Let's get back to business.

(To be continued)