Forbes magazine few weeks ago listed 11 Nigerians to be amongst the 40 richest Africans in 2012 in a nation where 80% of Nigerian citizens or about 120 million ordinary Nigerians are living in abject or chronic poverty of $1-$2 a day living budget. The biggest question that is left unanswered by all these Nigerians who are celebrating this good news today as a national pride is this:how did those Nigerian's billionaires listed by Forbes magazine make their money or become wealthy?
A detailed perusal of the Forbes' list revealed the following things about those Nigerians who are amongst the richest Africans today and made the list on this global magazine. (i) All these richest Nigerians are business men and women or government contractors, retired top military officers and former top civil servants or former political office holders.
(ii) These individuals made their wealth from the following sources in Nigeria (shady oil block allocations given to these individuals through favoritism, highly inflated importation of petroleum products to Nigeria, highly inflated government contracts that were never fully executed and the monopoly of the importation licenses that are needed for the importation of the basic goods and services that all Nigerians need to survive .
(iii) None of these wealthy individuals built their own wealth from the scratch without heavily and corruptly patronizing every government of the day in power in Nigeria. (iv) None of these wealthy individuals built their wealth with the same spirit of entrepreneurship that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey and many others all over the human universe used to build their own wealth and fame.
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