After being expelled from Malaysia, Singaporean citizens were bitter people who vandalized public property at any protest or riot. The public property included government-owned houses where people rented and lived, buses, hospitals and other social-service facilities. Later, the government involved the citizens to co-own the property by keeping some percentage of the people’s salaries as payment for shares in the public property. The people were glad to be co-owners of the service-system in their country, who also got profit dividends on their shares. They began to patronize and advertise the use of government facilities, as more patronage will bring more profit dividends on their shares. So, during further riots, the same people who used to burn public buses and houses protected the government property because they had become co-owners (shareholders) of the property.[1]
The worst people to have in the society are people who have nothing to lose.[2]
These are people who have no tangible property to their names, no loved ones to defend, no dignity to protect and no cause to live for. Some are empty, hungry, hopeless, mission-less and poor that they see their living as meaningless. Such people are often bitter and desperate from societal negligence. At this point of desperation, life becomes too meaningless that they choose to live by any possible means or die trying. Hence, they can join any crime, adventure, cause or form that may give some meaning to their lives.
The community is the custodian of people’s rights and liberties; and the citizens’ quality of life is an indicator of a society’s sense of justice. By taking care of the social needs of its people, the society educates its people to be responsible for the society to which they belong, and from which they are sustained. Most people that fall into the mind-set of ‘having nothing to lose’ did not choose that life for themselves. They are created by the level of diligence or negligence of the society to its duty of protecting, developing, empowering and establishing the citizens for productivity and fulfilment.
The Nigerian society is replete with people who have nothing to lose. The Almajiri children who are products of poverty-stricken polygamous families; street kids who have not had the taste of family love or care from their single/careless/penniless parents; abandoned children who are left to die by the roadsides, kids that are born in baby factories or those who escape from abusive homes; rich kids abandoned to the education of nannies, toys and media by their ever-busy and working-class parents; jobless youths who painfully watch the gradual waste of their youthful energy; grown people who are empty and without a noble cause/purpose; who only exist to eat, sleep, sex and brag. These category of citizens form easy recruits for cultism, terrorism, thuggery, robbery and other social threats.
This band of people with nothing to lose are a time-bomb waiting to explode. Many Nigerian experts talk about the danger of joblessness and emptiness among the Nigerian youth. But rhetoric alone will never be enough. There is a greater need for new institutions, well organized, well-staffed, and well directed to follow up the exhortations and stirring speeches.[3] Yet, the chaotic structure of Nigerian politics makes it extremely difficult for any organic development to take place. The absence of distinct understanding and agreement between the ethnic communities in Nigeria makes it impossible to fully implement even a single policy since the beginning of Nigeria. One group agrees, the other disagrees and the internal battle that has kept us physically together and emotionally apart keeps growing.
The first step towards human development and meaningful life in Nigeria will be a renegotiation of the terms of nationhood by the various ethnic communities. When a true agreement comes from the people, the other policies on content and quality of education and general human development will become agreeable.
[1] Cf. Lee Kwan Yew, From third world to First world. (New York: HarperCollins, 2000)
[2] Lee Kwan Yew,
[3] Lee Kwan Yew, p18