Yea, I know right? You read the title and you were like WTF? It's true, grab a cup of coffee, hit the sofa and I'll tell you. Ehrmm, just try not to judge :-)
My name is Christian Jombo, a 27year old dude from oil rich southern Nigeria. My country is both blessed and cursed. Blessed with a mind blowing quantity of black Gold or Crude Oil as most of you know it, cursed with amazingly stupid and inconsiderate leaders. This means that for the billions of dough we've raked in from the black Gold, we have little or nothing to show for it. So this means that, apart from being born in war torn Syria or oppressive North Korea, being born in Nigeria ranks as one of the worst things that could happen to you. In my part of town, a popular jokes says that when a baby is pulled out of it's mother, and the nurse says, "Welcome to Nigeria", the baby cries. I'm not sure how true that is, but not too far from where I stay, a new born baby looked around and exclaimed, "Not again".
However, it's not all doom and gloom. You see, Nigerian's are rated as the happiest people on earth. We literally laugh at anything. From mediocrity of our leaders to the misfortune of our fellow citizens. I mean where else do you see citizens laughing at the billions of dollars allocated by a minister to cutting grass around his ministry? or Where else do you see memes of a dancing Senator? We've been through so much that at a point, most of us don't care. Unemployment is at an all time high, lots of businesses are closing shop as the effects of recession bites deep into our pockets. We've gotten tired of being told that the future belongs to us. Which future? The one that they are sacrificing on the alter of today? The one that they've smuggled their children away from? Leave us alone. As my fellow Nigerians will say, "we cannot come and kill ourselves".
In spite of all of this, we are also the most hopeful people. It is this hope for a better tomorrow that has driven most of us to amazing successes in entrepreneurship. Oh, I didn't tell you. Nigerians are among the most hardworking, enterprising and successful. We succeed despite all odds. Yea, a Nobel prize winner here, an Innovator there, a Social Change Developer, an industrialist over there, I mean, we are littered every where. 2 in every 10 successful people are Nigerians, 6 in 10 successful black people.
We've been able to achieve all of these because, in a crazy world such as ours, it's crazy not to be crazy. I'm crazy and I hope you now know why :-)