Nigerian Youths And The Crave For Quick Riches

by Stella Odika

The youths of our present day society has developed a huge appetite for quick riches, that the thought and expectation of an average young man in Nigeria today is to get rich overnight and live a life of affluence, not minding the consequences, forgetting that “An obsession to increase wealth is a main source of misery”—Mahatma Gandhi.

We are presently living in a time where you can see a young boy of about 18-25 years of age who have no meaningful source of income, buying and driving exotic cars that his own parents cannot afford, and living a flamboyant life style. Most of them live in very expensive and well-furnished apartment, put on expensive designers wears, and are not employee of any organization, nor do they have any visible means of income or a legal business that one can think of.

This inappropriate life style by youths of this generation has become so rampant and the in thing in our today society, that if not checked now, will lead to a very serious societal problem now, and in the generation to come, because, you see a young boy who should be talking about his studies, and be passionate about going to school, and reading his books to become a better person in society, will rather be talking on how to make it big and live large in town, not knowing that there are no shortcut to success, and according to a great motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, “There is no elevator to success, only stair”.

Most painful of it is that, this ugly trend has eaten deep into the youths, and has affected their mentality; they now believe that the only way to make it in life is to get involved in fraudulent activities either in the working environment or in the street. They no longer have faith in religious and social values, such as hard work, patience, justice, grace, humility, mercy, self-discipline, respect for elders, modesty, honesty, orderliness etc, or bothered about how the riches will come, or what they need to do to get it, even if it would cost them selling their souls to the devil, or mortgaging their future or the life of someone for ritual, they don’t care, all they just want is to get rich, which the Holy book condemn saying “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows”.

This crave to get rich quick has often made them to get involved in different fraudulent activities, such as kidnapping, robbery, cyber-crimes, such as yahoo yohoo, yahoo plus, Ghana boga etc. Most of them has not even passed through the four walls of any level of education or acquire any skills to build themselves, rather their only focus is to live a big life, unfortunately, a big life that they have no wisdom to sustain, because they have not gone through the sufferings of life to be build, and to learn what it takes to make
money before spending, and that is why you see most of them lavishing money, buying expensive houses, flashy cars, jewelries etc, without proper investment. And, obviously, as the Holy Book says “wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase”. This really affirmed the fact that, there is no way money gotten fraudulently in any form can be increased, rather it will diminish, and it really shows why these youths who got their wealth through dubious and fetish means are not able to sustained it.

Now, regarding this displeasing life style of our youths, what can we say truly is the cause? A leadership expert, John C. Maxwell said “Everything raises and falls on leadership”. There is no doubt, the leadership system at all levels in our society has failed drastically, from the family, community, school, church, organization, and the state at large.

We live in a society where wealth is seriously celebrated; people no longer bother to ascertain the true source of people’s wealth before pouring encomium on them, just because they have money to throw around. And due to the moral decadence in our society, people are respected and given leadership positions due to their wealth and affluence, which is very wrong.
In curbing this menace in our society, the following measures should be put in place:
• Constitutionalized value driven institutions and systems must be put in place, to re-orientate the people on the need to sustain our moral values, and also ditch out disciplinary action to those that fault them.
• Moral education as a matter of priority should be thought in schools, especially at the primary school level.
• There should be a platform where people of hard work, creativity,
intelligence, integrity, courage, and most especially, common sense
should be strongly embraced and celebrated.
• Leadership positions at the local, state, and federal level should be scrutinized to see that, only those with integrity and strong character are voted into office, and all leadership positions should be made unattractive, to enable only those that have the heart of service to fit in, so as to reduce corrupt practices.
• Parents/guardians should ensure as part of their responsibility to question the move of their children, or anything they brought home that does not belongs to them, and also teach them the virtues of morals and hard work. They should also live by example.
• The church leaders should also condemn any lifestyle that is geared
towards quick accumulation of wealth, preach and encourage hard work,
patience, integrity, and also try to ascertain the source of wealth of its members before accepting huge donations from them.
• The movie/entertainment industry should be seriously censored by
relevant authorities to see that movies/music that does not promote societal values are not produced. There should be a serious law put in
place to ensure that quick riches and crime promoting movies/music are
banned. Also, movie stars, and musicians should be obligated by law to
live a moderate lifestyle, and not to be flamboyant in their appearance, because they are the role models of most youths in our country, and they are inspired and motivated by their lifestyle, which in turn usually move them to get involved in most of the unpleasant activities in the society.
• The media which serves as the bedrock of the society should not be
found wanting in promoting non value based ideas through their programmes. They should uphold their core responsibility, by sharpening the ideas of the people, and orientating them to sustain our moral values, by discouraging them from involving in immoral activities through the content of their programmes.

In conclusion, every hand needs to be on deck to shape and redirect the wrong notion of our Nigerian youths towards making quick money.
They have to understand that “Life is in phases, and human are in sizes”. Bishop David Oyedepo. So, they don’t need to rush towards getting rich quick, but follow life’s process through diligence, honesty, and perseverance, so they can find themselves in the right position to get everything good life has to offer including riches.