Nigeria: An Enigma

In recent times, and ever since I joined the hubs global family, I have come to appreciate the affinity amongst the members and the clustering of fans according to topics of reading interests.

From India to Idaho, London to Lahore, Sydney to Singapore, Hawaii to Hague... the hubs have come pouring-in. Brilliant responses and comments have followed from across the globe, with suggestions and inputs that are peculiar to each person's perspective.

Yet I know for a certainty that I may never get to experience Breakfast in Taipei nor Lunch in Manila or Dinner in Toronto.

This invariably leads to my topic for discourse. I have gleaned so much about so many cultures and climes that have been painted in radiant colors by hubbers, but may never get to experience it. By the same token, so much is seen and heard about Nigeria: the nation as well as its people and many of you may never get the experiential knowledge.

For many of us who live and work in Nigeria, the Nigerian story has been exaggeratingly distorted. Of a necessity, people are better-off forming personal opinions based on actual experiences, encounters and impressions and not principally on parochial media reports or sensational journalism. We must also Endeavour to draw the line between Bias and Parochialism as well as against Truism and Reality.

In many of my travels across Western Europe and the Middle East, I have had to expound and explain Truism from Falsity, Positive from Negative, Real from the Incongruous.

So many decent hardworking and professional Nigerians live and work across the globe, most especially in Western Europe and North America, earning as it were, a decent and honorable living whilst carving deep niches for themselves in all spheres of human endeavor. And so, as with all human societies, you are bound to find social deviants and grossly maladjusted peoples living amongst them....the proverbial "bad apple".

The perpetual negative global impressions created by these few, have smeared, to a large and very devastating extent...the greater majority. Shame.

On the strength of the accumulated experiences I have garnered during my frequent travels, as well as the need to correct certain erroneous and debilitating impressions people around the world have about Nigerians or Nigeria, I thought I should probably ask the hub community if someone or anyone, for that matter, is interested in making genuine enquiries about Nigeria as a nation or Nigerians as a people, to please respond to this hub with questions or comments.

I had earlier thought of writing a series on the entire nation and its nationals, but thought I should seek your opinions first.

Please let me know what you think. Thank you.

Sam Oyelude