An estimated 3 million Nigerians who had 'invested' in MMM Nigeria had their funds 'freezed' last December. The MMM authorities gave a clear reason for this freeze and even published a resumption date for normal operation to recommence, but guess what happened? most people, especially those who didn't invest in the Ponzi started peddling rumours that the scheme had 'crashed'. Gradually, these 'rumours' became so strong that pages of Newspaper and social media-published articles were written with several case studies being cited to back the fact that MMM Nigeria had crashed for good.
When this falsity was eventually certified true by self acclaimed analysts and common sense pundits, the memes and people shaming started flowing in.
'Everyone' who didn't participate in MMM tried as much as possible to make the about 3 million participants depressed. The psychological pressure of having your money frozen during the festive season eventually got worsened by the jeering and soul-tearing mockery of those whom you call your friends and family.
The most interesting point however was not that MMM had crashed and therefore turned its investors into a laughing stock, the most pivotal lesson was the fact that most people were earnestly hoping and praying that MMM never returned. In essence, they daily looked forward to a situation where over 3 million of their neighbours, friends, family members, Church members, colleagues and fellow countrymen will loose hundreds of millions, if not billions to a Russian ponzi scheme.
Suffice to say, they wanted MMM to fail, so 3 million Nigerians can fall into depression , all in one fell swoop. The fact that this is how we exercise being our Brother's keeper in Nigeria is what bothers me.
This mentality of unhealthy competition and illogical rivalry has perpetuated Nigeria in poverty and left us at the fringes of the long list of developing countries in the world. I stand to be corrected, but the average Nigerian wants to be richer than his neighbour, even when he is less hard working and industrious. Someone who dropped out from school to pursue the mirage of a football career in Europe would start 'beefing' his former classmates who are successful 10-years later after the professional footballer dream had emerged a colossal failure.
You see, even parents irrationally compare the progress of their wards, not minding the passion and value of these unique individuals, instead a constant contest of monetary superiority is always being pitched. For instance, once you are a teacher who earns less than a sibling who is a musician, you are automatically tagged a failure, and constantly reminded of this 'failure' as if a teacher is of no value to the society. Wives compare their husbands to His more successful peers and the list of 'beefing and comparison' only grows worse and worse.
Eventually, successful people, or rather financially successful people become the target of an endless conspiracy theory and victimisation. Friends you've constantly helped will start wishing that you just go broke because they feel that you minding your business equals you being a snub. There is hardly a rich person in Nigeria whose wealth hasn't been alluded to one scam, cult or ritual, all in an effort to belittle his/her efforts.
Eventually if you keep progressing after all the verbal antagonism, voodoo is marshalled out to help stop your success train. Thats when you find out that all of a sudden, Strange objects start showing up at your residence, unexplainable accidents starts happening, customers start aandoning you for no reason, your boss sacks you because you smiled too much.
You see, the whole 'MMM has crashed' saga wasn't really about ponzi or mavrodi, it was a financial battle between friends who risked loosing all or gaining an extra 30% versus those who didn't want to risk anything but yet couldn't stand you the risk taker being 30% richer than they. Sure, there seems to be no common sense explanation to this, since logically he who takes the most risk is expected to earn the most profit or loss as the case may be, but here among my country men, they will rather you loose at every turn so that their bank balance will always be more than yours at every given time, not minding how hard you work or how enterprising you are.
It's so sad that this is just how our society is. But what can a man do?
kindly share your opinions in the comment section
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