It is not Buhari, stupid!

My people, I have come into some facts; real facts that have shown that the problem is not Buhari o. It is us and our priorities. Nigerians are fond of railing against the government, especially the leadership when the real problem is them.

Listen! We spent about N600m on condoms last year. Seventy million condoms were shifted in a country with only 40,000 doctors and about 134,000 hospital beds. Are we a serious people? Wait for more. Over N780b was spent on gambling last year, with our addicts driving the total betting market size to about $1b; making it the second biggest in Africa. I am still waiting for the figures on alcohol and cigarettes consumption, then you will see the kind of people that we are.

It is easy for us to shout government when the food distribution chain is ineffective. We shout government when there are no drugs in the hospitals and we shout government when our children sit on bare floors in schools with no roof to get taught by underpaid teachers. Yet 60m of us are out there betting and using condoms like there is no tomorrow.

My people, do you know that the s3x toy industry in less than five years is now the largest in Africa, employing over 100,000 Nigerians and generating revenues that will dwarf the annual budget of Taraba state.

Do you know that our youths are earning serious Forex and contributing very significantly to the $25b that came in the other year as diaspora remittance through their activities on porn sites.

What amazes me is the fact that in these industries we do not hear of the usual cry from entrepreneurs as being the reason they are not making headway – lack of forex, multiple taxation, inefficient and unstable government policy, inflation, power and all that.

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In these areas, nothing like that we are churning out massive figures. The betting industry has a market leader that generated N114.5b in one year. Please, ask me what our other industries are doing? Is it not the same harsh operating environment?

Nigerians continue to show that when it comes to vices nothing, not even weak operating environment will stop them from indulging.

These sectors play on the inelasticity of the demand for their services. Nothing will stop a gambler from having s3x and taking his drink. The worse is that he will reduce his intake but most of the time, he will beg, steal or borrow to feed his vices and this fuels the industry, creating jobs and wealth.

In this case, government inefficiency does not count o. What this tells me is the fact that it throws up the laziness of the average Nigerian who would rather justify his harried existence by hiding under the cloak that Nigeria is useless.

Well, the promoters of these platforms would beg to disagree and as for me, my only challenge would be how do we transmit these magic to other sectors like agriculture, infrastructure, transport and power. How do we mute government and go ahead to build huge behemoths like these ones?

I have a sick feeling that the answer may not come in this life time.

Author: Joseph Edgar…

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Articles published in our Graffiti section are strictly the opinion of the writers and do not represent the views of Ripples Nigeria or its editorial stand.

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