CAN ANY NIGERIAN BECOME A BILLIONAIRE WITHOUT USING ANY DISHONEST MEANS?

Few Nigerians have made the global list of the African dollar-rated billionaires according to the latest publication from the Forbes magazine that monitors and estimates the yearly wealth of the richest people and the biggest corporations around the world. How did these few Nigerians become billionaires? Did these handful of wealthy Nigerian billionaires make their money through the honest means or through the dishonest means? Did they create their huge fortunes today through the instruments of entrepreneurship? Are these billionaires the direct products of the government patronage in all ramifications? How many billionaires are in the world today out of the over 7 billion humans according to the Forbes magazine? The world today has only 1,012 billionaires from the almost 200 nations. America that is the richest nation in the world and with a GDP of $16 trillion annually has less than 400 billionaires in a population of 312 million persons.

The present day Nigerian billionaires are all individuals who took the full advantage of the Nigeria's highly corrupt system through the monopoly of the nation's import and operating licences that are needed for the supply of goods and services for all Nigerians, the highly corrupt practice of selective allocations of the nation's oil blocks for special Nigerians and the stealing of Nigeria's wealth through the illegal oil bunkering, the practice of awarding these highly inflated and uncompleted government contracts and the treasury looting of the public funds by our public elected officials, political appointees and top civil servants that the World Bank in 2012 estimated to be about $400 billion since October 1, 1960.

Nigeria is rated today by the many international crime and financial organizations around the world as one of the most corrupt nations in the world and also the 10th leading country worldwide in terms of the yearly money laundering activities. Corruption is now the best game that most Nigerians play very well from the government offices to the private sector and to the ordinary Nigerians on the streets. It is almost practically impossible to run a business in Nigeria today without bribing the government officials. It is also physically unrealistic for any Nigerian to win a government contract without paying kickbacks to the various officials in charge or import goods through the seaports and airports without bribing the custom officials and the clearing agencies.

I will conclude this write-up by quoting from the interview that one of the richest businessmen in the world today Sir Richard Brandson granted last year after corruption in Nigeria forced him to close his airline business in Nigeria as a foreign investor. Sir Richard Brandson said in that interview:“We fought daily battle against government agents who wanted to daily make fortune from us, politicians who saw the government 49% as a meal to seek for all kinds of favour…watchdogs (regulatory body) that didn’t know what to do and persistently asking for bribes at any point…Nigeria people are generally nice but the politicians are very insane…that may be irony because the people make up the politicians… “But those politicians are selfish…we did make N3billion for the federal government of Nigeria during the joint venture…realizing that the government didn’t bring nothing to the table/partnership except dubious debts by the previous carrier, Nigeria Airways…The joint venture should have been the biggest African carrier by now if the partnership was allowed to grow, but the politicians killed it…Nigeria is a country we shall never consider to doing business again in Nigeria”