The three types of Nigerians

Sir: We are a unique people, celebrated around the world for our exceptionality. We never revel at poor governance publicly but privately, in bedrooms and comfortable zones. This is possible because of a veneer of harmony that is built around the Nigerian.

The average Nigerian man is an ethnic and religious bigot. However hard he tries to disguise it, you cannot fail to see through them.

Despite so-called sophistication and education, the streak of bigotry is revealed in the way they address issues. They do not embrace everyone; neither do they treat every person with respect. Many pretend to be environmental activists and although activism should be without borders, theirs are carried out with borders, pillorying people who are outside of their borders for all of their political challenges.

Yesterday this man, very broke in the Goodluck Jonathan years as president but rich in the Muhammadu Buhari era said he no brook no idle talk in his home about adversity that Nigerians suffer under the Buhari administration and ordered his wife to vote for him in his re-election bid. “Did you ever imagine you could ever drive a car, but it is under this administration that I bought you one? He told her.
 
There are three types of Nigerians and all are ethnic jingoists.
a. The selfish: This category includes most politicians, and all other people who are in charge of bazaars for all but have chosen to use religion and all other man-made trickeries to divide people so they alone and their families can hold the cornucopia forever. What matters to these selfish lots is their interest and nothing more.

It doesn’t matter if people die in the bid for them to hold on to what is supposed to be for the public good. Small men but they assume to be strong on a false scale. Strong men do not short-change the weak; they empower them so as to free them from the plantation of lassitude. People in this category find it hard to help the poor in the real sense by setting up charitable causes that will outlive them. People in this category do not help people. 

b. The hypocrite: This category includes government workers and all others who benefit from the Nigerian state and yet do not believe in Nigeria. Some even draw salaries from government and yet campaign for the total collapse of the Nigerian state. They should know that there are better qualified people out there who are not in jobs owing to no fault of theirs. Many here got government scholarships, studied abroad, some in Nigeria in government universities but are not patriotic to the Nigerian state. Most people in Nigeria who are not in government employment are more patriotic than those in this category.

c. The poor in spirit: This category includes the very poor in Nigeria unfortunately they are in the majority.

For a nickel, they can kill and do the bidding of politicians without asking why. They are at the mercy of top-guns always. They can be asked to hate the “other side,” for no justifiable causes and they would. Even though ‘only the poor helps the poor,” people in this category short-change the poor, rob and kidnap the poor and kill the poor during religious crises. Many are unintelligent and are highly dangerous.
 
Simon Abah wrote from Abuja.