RMD Says Stop Condemning Nigeria, and Twitter Immediately Proved His Point By Condemning Him
After RMD advised Nigerians to stop condemning the country and start proposing solutions, Twitter held an emergency national conference to condemn the advice. Sources say solutions may be discussed after light, fuel, and data return.
RMD, yes the same fine, ever-youthful RMD, stood up at this big Pivot Nigeria conference in Lagos and told Nigerians, basically, "guys, we complain too much, let's start offering solutions instead." And within minutes, predictably, Nigerians on the internet responded to a call for less complaining with... more complaining. The irony wrote itself, we didn't even need to add jokes.
His actual point, though? Not bad at all. "We are too quick to condemn us. There are problems, but we need to fix them. Don't stand and just criticise and then proffer no solution." Fair. Very fair, actually. We are a nation of champion complainers, Olympic-level, gold medal in "wahala dey" commentary, but when it comes to "okay, so what's the actual fix," suddenly everybody remembers an urgent WhatsApp message they need to reply to.
He also hit us with "you are an ambassador, not just for yourself, but for your country," which, respectfully, sir, some of these ambassadors abroad are out there embarrassing us in ways that would make the Ministry of Foreign Affairs want to revoke their passports. But point taken, our individual conduct does shape how the world sees us, whether we like it or not.
And honestly, RMD does have receipts to back the optimism: Nollywood is now a Netflix regular, Afrobeats has the whole world dancing without knowing what half the lyrics mean, Dangote is out here building things. So yes, something is clearly working, even if the something isn't government.
But here's where Nigerians will side-eye him a little: it's easier to say "stop complaining, offer solutions" when NEPA isn't the reason your fridge just died, or fuel price isn't eating your transport budget alive. Complaining, for many of us, isn't laziness, it's pressure release. We complain the way other countries do therapy, free, communal, and backed by pepper soup.
So yes, RMD, point taken, we'll offer more solutions. Right after we finish complaining about why we have to.
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