I HAD once written about the character of the average Nigerian. To be added to that, by way of update is what seems to me to be the Nigerian's lack of originality. It is a controversial point, but there is no doubting the fact that the average Nigerian is greedy; functioning very close to the state of nature. Aristotle it was who had said that "a child learns by imitation"; there is something child-like about the Nigerian lack of originality. As a people, we like to imitate; we lack the capacity to write our own stories, even if as individuals we are among the most gifted human beings on planet Earth. Why are we the way we are? Forever short-changing ourselves. Reducing the national potential in the process. Subjecting the environment to a curious herd-mentality. I speak of majority tendency of course, there is still a minority that keeps the country going with its distinction, but the efforts of that majority are dangerously abbreviated by the omissions of the antithetical minority.

You only need to take a look at the organisation of the Nigerian business environment to confirm this. Start a line of business. Build it up. Make it successful. Before long, every Dick and Harry in town will rush into that line of business. Nigerians don't know how to give credit to pioneers. "Who does she think she is? Is she the only one? I can do better." But they are not interested in making anything better; they are attracted by what they perceive to be the profit end of the enterprise. Before long, they'd ruin the business, destroy standards, overpopulate it so much that profit will become impossible. It is natural for human beings to measure themselves against each other and to compete, but social competition in Nigeria is driven mostly not by the search for excellence, but greed and mischief!

Ten years ago, you could count the number of fast food joints on your finger tips across Nigeria. The moment it became a successful business, everyone rushed into it. People resigned from their professional careers and set up eateries. Today, there is a fast food joint on almost every other corner. They are becoming almost as ubiquitous as the churches. Standards of service have not improved, rather they have dropped. Nigerians do not believe in investing their energies in areas where they are most suited.

They would try their hands at anything, with the hope to make profit the way the other man has. As it is with the fast food business, so it is with the churches. Church business used to be a very sober business. The clergy were taken seriously because the average clergy man of old actually conducted himself and sounded as if he had been one of the original disciples of Jesus Christ or a witness to the emergence of the Church at Antioch . The moment someone turned the business of Christian worship into something glamorous and eclectic, everyone else jumped onto the bandwagon. There has been a competition since then over whose church is the most spirit-filled and with the greatest anointing, resulting in an inversion of the Doctrine and the introduction into Christian worship, of pagan practices that belong more to the province of commerce and deception. It used to be the case in this country that if anyone was found to be articulate, others would say of him or her: you would make a good lawyer". These days, the first career consideration for such persons is: "You will make a good pastor; you can start a church in the future." Becoming a pastor is the easiest thing of course you only need to claim that you saw a vision, you heard voices, or you were called (by Satan or Belzeebub, nobody ever bothers to check!) .

Go and ask the first set of persons who established the foundations of Nollywood. Twenty five years ago, actors and actresses in Nigeria were looked down upon as unserious people. The moment a few gifted persons raised the profile of the performing arts and it became fashionable for actors and other artistes to live well, become celebrities and be respected by society, everyone rushed in there. Talent didn't matter. Engineering graduates, architects and lawyers suddenly discovered that they too could look good in front of the camera, and so began the rush of mediocrity into Nollywood. Today, Nollywood is at a crossroads. Every actress is a producer or a would-be producer. Every actor is a potential Local Council Chairman or Special Assistant to a Governor, or President of the Actors Guild. The few who claim to be committed pay more attention to their good looks rather than their skills. There are actresses whose claim to fame is their exposure of their anatomy and the fact that this has set the imagination of paying audiences on fire. Every week, there is a young lady or a young man seeking to get into Nollywood, not to contribute to art, but to become a celebrity and also make quick bucks. There are fewer persons willing to pay the dues, or come up with original ideas that can move the industry forward. When a committed artiste speaks up and makes a case for improvement in standards, he is shouted down by those who call themselves "the rave of the moment." That is what most artistes do these days. They rave.

Is there any point reminding us of the number of persons who wished they could play football and actually tried to play it by force when Nigerians gained a foothold in professional football in Europe and elsewhere? And should you assume that I describe an elite tendency, how about the okada business. The okada is a product of both expediency and necessity. As soon as it became a lucrative business, there was a big scramble to get into that line of business. Even University Professors abandoned research and became okada entrepreneurs. When you visit a typical Nigerian university campus these days, I mean those ones that still have staff quarters, you would be pleasantly surprised to discover that the once serene staff quarters populated by contemplative minds and their once upon a time, equally sober families, have been taken over by kiosks, pepper soup joints, recharge card retail sheds. Those businesses are not necessarily owned by the Professor's wife, but by the Professor himself! The aluminum business is trying to catch up. When ordinary people do not buy the okada, they try to learn how to play around with aluminum windows and roofs. There are fewer persons willing to learn such trades as bricklaying; mechanical engineering, vulcanizing, painting ...too strenuous.

As it is with trades, so it is with fashion styles. It takes only one woman to wear something nice; before you know it every other woman is copying the same style. That is why fashion pictures and magazines are so popular: female readers are interested in fashion styles. I once attended a society function where more than 20 women wore the same design and this was not the notorious aso ebi, just a display of lack of originality, every Janet trying to look like Jane. The urge to belong, to be seen to be part of the crowd, childishly interpreted in some circumstances as being progressive has also since affected the NGO community. NGOs used to be extremely effective in this country; their potentials and achievement were demonstrated during the struggle for Nigerian democracy in the 90s. Foreign agencies supported Nigerian NGOs with donor funds. But that was also the undoing of the NGO concept. Before long, too many Nigerians had set up NGOs, so many of them inside the briefcases and bank accounts of their promoters. It became so notorious that every wife of an important government official found it necessary to set up one. In their case, it is a special purpose vehicle for raising funds from their husbands' friends and associates and the public treasury. Although two or three First Ladies showed how much could be achieved through good intentions.

I assume that it is the same copycat syndrome that drives Nigerians who experiment with homosexuality and bisexuality. And the militants who have adopted Western methods of terrorism. And the latest revelation that there are Nigerian children who are signing up as suicide bombers. Do we say all of this is human, all too human? Perhaps, But it is also a reflection of the corrosive environment in which Nigerians have found themselves. Our society is so dangerously lacking in higher values, the environment is so harsh it allows for very little creativity. Innovativeness is discouraged and so the young and the not so young can be easily recruited onto available bandwagons.

To imitate is human but we can encourage the scope for creativity and originality by expanding the scope for human expression through good governance. In more progressive societies, young children asked what they would like to become in life could answer: "I'll like to be a fireman." A teacher. A nurse. A salesman. A diver. A driver. Plumber. Horologist...knowing full well, that whatever he or she chooses to do, society will offer him or her the best opportunity for growth and fulfillment. Should a Nigerian child make such a suggestion, the mother is likely to scream with every ounce of energy within her: "I reject it in Jesus name. No child from my womb will end up as a fireman or plumber in Jesus name!" It is a pity that this is so.

Postscript: Overheard

Two friends were trying to figure out why Nigeria is finding it so difficult to make progress. They came up, in their own way, with a rather intriguing list....

- The wrong people are in power and politics in Nigeria

- The wrong people are in the civil service. All the good people avoided the military, the civil service and politics, thinking that it is better to go into more noble professions.

- All the good hands are where they should not be. The country wastes its best and brightest.

- Nigerians are too emotional. They talk. They don't like to act.

- The country has lost its moral compass. Nearly every Nigerian is looking for money and more money.

- Too much energy is devoted to religion

- Nigerians enjoy living a lie. They have a great capacity to suffer and smile at the same time.

- Polygamy is a major obstacle to the objective of good governance. Many public officials divert energy that should be used to serve the state, settling home-front squabbles. Shouldn't we insist on a one man, one wife policy for anyone seeking a position in government?

- Ideas do not count for much among Nigerians. That is why churches and mosques are doing better than educational institutions.

- To build a good society requires imagination and innovation. Over-dependence on crude oil resources and unchecked access to public treasury have robbed Nigerian leaders of imagination.

- Nigerians love public holidays. They are excited by any opportunity not to work. They want the good life, but they'd rather not work for it.

- Nigerians worship appearances; they are impressed by finery, not substance.

- Nigerians lack a sense of nationhood. Every one is invariably an ethnic hero at heart.

- We are a fun-loving people. That is why every weekend, there is a party on every street corner. By the time Nigerians report for work on Monday, most of them are exhausted. The merry making starts on Friday, continues all through Saturday, with half of Sunday spent in church, on what would pass in most instances for hard labour.

- Nigeria is not investing in its young population. We probably have the highest record of child abuse in the world, with old men going about with girls young enough to be their daughters, with parents sending their children onto the streets to beg, with children school of age on the streets.

- Nigeria is 50, and yet it is still crawling, and there is no outrage yet among the people.

- Nearly every Nigerian family has someone or knows someone who is in Europe, Asia or wherever in the world, and a long army of others also planning to abandon the country. So sad.