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| Feeling blue? Nip over to the land of Hope & Optimism: Nigeria |
A recent poll by Gallup has ranked Nigerians as the most hopeful & optimistic people on earth.Usually accustom to reading negative headlines about
According to the article, low income countries such as Nigeria(My feeble mind is yet to grasp the complexity of a country with the largest oil reserve in Africa and world's 10th largest oil producer being described as a low income country.Personally I think the indicators of what is high or low income have been determined by
Back to the topic at hand: the most optimistic and hopeful people resided in poorer countries such as Afghanistan,Iraq,Kossovo, Bangladesh, etc It is difficult to imagine any hope in the debris war mess that is Iraq and Afghanistan(Then again my judgement has been heavily marred by the stream of negative press we are bombarded with about these countries).
How pale grey shock I was to read that G7 countries who are of course notably high income countries; scored perilously low on optimism! They saw the future through dark glasses albeit their sunny wealth status. Perhaps the vibrant heat rays from their wealth temporary blinded them-plunging them into a dark abyss? Indeed the old cliché money doesn't buy happiness springs to mind(Though I am vehemently of the opinion that money plays a central part in happiness).
So there we go...Nigeria is officially the happiest place on earth and make that all of Africa too! Where:
- Everyone knows their neighbours names.
- Do not need an invite/make pretentious phone calls to visit friends/family.
- Actually communicate with humans as in physical communication not e-poking, etc via Facebook(We are on the verge of loosing our facial& body expressions due to the fact that all are now transmitted via texts,emails, etc such as "smh","rotf","lol"....etc endless lists of actions which makes me "smh" too as I write this.)
- People do not lie dead in houses/flats for weeks and even years unnoticed.
Abbreviations used:
- Smh:Shakes my head
- Rotf:Rolling on the floor
- Lol:Laugh out loud.
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5 comments:
The article in my opinion is pointless. First of all, happiness comes in many forms material, biological, spiritual, psychological etc just to name a few. According to the article, I suppose if you you have hit rock bottom any move you make towards the top or upwards would have to be considered as being optimistic which should in theory make you happy. As Lapiro said it, you pass me for rich I pass you for poor. Could this be where the author of the article got his idea from?
The cultural, communal and individual aspirations of the Nigerian people is a good premise to base such a research. It is not very much different from other West and Central African countries, but Nigeria having such a massive population and with her waxing movie industry easily attracts such attention. Kudos to the writer. (Emma E. E.)
Measuring happiness has and always will be a tricky matter. For starters, it is a relative measure meaning that what makes Bob tick will not necessarily rock Jack's boat. Secondly, most measurable quantities can be expressed in units. For example, distance in kilometres, time in seconds and so on. The absence of any real unit of happiness means that those who measure happiness will rely on subjective qualities such as laughing, smiling etc.
While happiness cannot be scientifically rationalised, this however does not take away from the fact that it exists or indeed that some people have more of it than others.
My personal opinion is that happiness is a function of the people/community around us and not a result of having things or money.
I often wonder that those who accept other 'soft' surveys such as the Transparency Index on corruption and use the usual figures on Africa especially GDP, HDI which are largely based on estimated 'garbage' data balk at this survey. In most parts of West Africa and certainly 50% of Nigeria that is rural people do not need loads of money to live comfortably. People can still freely go into the bush and pluck fruits and keep livestock without resort to paper money. They still wake up to a world of many possibilities rather than a cynicism about seeing it all. They still hold a curiosity about life. Yet they have problems, health, water, electricity. However unlike their elites they still have some connection to the old system where wealth was measured by how many people you cared for. Nigeria is not a rich country even if you added all the oil wealth and distributed it per capita . There are only about a10 countries in the world with over 140 million people. It is the soul and essence of our people that they are very forgiving, life loving, hopeful and optimistic people. Generally kind to strangers and often forgetful of recent hurts. It is also part of the reason why we are not as ruthless as we can be in pursuit of political as well as economic transformation. I fear that much of that is changing too quickly. We then get a very hollow prosperity with material progress and emotional/spiritual emptiness. Ask the French.
Are we looking at specific areas or classes of Nigerians here? I am sure there are poverty stricken parts of Nigeria where chldren cannot even boast of a bench at school to sit and study. Towns which produce so much oil, yet they are the most deprived areas of the country. How happy can this be?
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