Nigerians Are Great Liars

A research conducted to find out the truth rating of Nigerians has shown an appalling result: Nigerians are great liars.

The research, conducted by the Love of Fatherland Initiative, a non-governmental organisation based in Lagos State, polled 3,000 respondents and discovered that all of them had told lies within the period of the researched.

The respondents, selected from schools, banks, churches and mosques, were asked: “How many of you have not told or written a lie in the last one year?”

The answer was zero as all the respondents agreed that they had lied within the period.

The question was asked again and the time frame reduced to six months. The answer was still zero as the respondents had told lies within the period.

The same question was further reduced to 24 hours and of the 3,000 polled, only five respondents agreed that they had not told any lie within the specific period.

Commenting on the outcome of the survey, the head of the NGO, Engr. Tunde Araoye, explained that “telling lies is a fruit of darkness of people’s minds and memories.”

According to him, “we went further in our research to look at the damage that lie telling does to an individual.

“We found out that any time you speak, it goes to the memory to register itself, but each time you tell a lie, it goes to the memory and blinds our mind.

“So, the reason why Nigerians are like this is because we have blinded minds. This is why we cannot reason straight.”

He disclosed further that internationally, the truth rating of Nigeria is put at 0.1 percent as against that of the Americans, put at 75 percent and Japanese, put at between 25 and 28 percent.

Despite the proliferation of religious groups in the country, Nigerians have refused to imbibe the culture of truth, he lamented, stressing that anybody who failed the three questions is as bad as any Nigerian leader.

“Nigeria is naked. There is no garment of love, integrity and honesty in the society.

“Like everyone else, I am bothered that if you go to the American and British embassies every morning, you will see a crowd wanting to leave this country, whereas if the Americans or British were to occupy Nigeria today and everyone of us is evacuated from Nigeria, by the time they live in Nigeria for 10 years, this place would have been transformed and it would be amazing. They would make cars and aeroplanes without importation.”

He said God had given Nigerians the ability to develop, but due to lies, their brains have refused to help them contribute to technological advancement in the world.

Attitude, he said, can either be one’s friend or foe and in the case of Nigerians, “it is our enemy.”

Araoye said he would continue to sensitise Nigerians on the importance of truth in their daily lives through his organisation.

He added that the organisation had taken the campaign to 200 schools and would soon extend the campaign to higher institutions in the country.