How much is Nigeria stifling your growth?

It comes to us at a different point in our lives.

We might be in our teens or be young adults but at sometime you realize that Nigeria is holding you back from achieving your dreams, from fulfilling your potential.

This epiphany hits us smack in the face and everything begins to make sense. Nigeria has been holding you back for a while and you are just realizing it. You compare yourself to your counterpart abroad and you see the huge gap.

"Nigeria is holding me back from my true potential and I'm tired of it" says Maria Atta about the challenges of living in Nigeria.

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This is a breakdown of how Nigeria holds you back.

When you are in Secondary School, there are no summer jobs for you to do during holidays. While young people abroad get summer jobs during the holidays and start to earn money and gain workforce experience, you are still stuck at home.

After you spend 4 years at the university (if there are no strikes) you don’t get tossed into the labour market directly. You take part in the mandatory one-year NYSC scheme.

Meanwhile, your counterpart abroad had gotten job offers before he or she graduated. By the time you are done with NYSC, you are a couple years behind when compared to other people around the world.

Let’s not even talk about the standard of living. You pay rent annually instead of monthly. Transportation is a mess and there is no consistent power supply.

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If you are lucky enough, you would get a job with a company that would pay your salary on time. If you are unlucky like many of the young people in Nigeria you wouldn’t have the faintest idea when you will get paid.

Health benefits and other perks are for only those who get the really good jobs which are scarce in Nigeria.

If you compare yourself to your cousin who was born and raised abroad you would see a clear difference. Life is structured and orderly over there.

In Nigeria, we have gotten used to the chaos and general lack of a standard that we have forgotten how far we are from the world.