6th October 2008
THE DAY NIGERIA WENT MAD
It is not a very rear sight to see some psychotic cases in the streets of Nigeria. Some of them even make abodes and makeshift residence in bus stops, roundabouts and road junctions.
In Nigeria, it is quite normal. It is not news.
But the day 5 millions Nigerians –or more than 10% of the Nigerians- act insane at once, then we will have a big problem and big news.
With that well said, then I must confess and confirm that we have a big problem; more than 10 million Nigerians went mad recently.
It all happened and started around 7 a.m. a day ago. I went down stairs to fetch water form the public tap (like I always do every morning). This morning, what I saw amazed me?
Usually normal people were outside the premises moving about like they were all looking for something. More than half the inhabitants of the street (about 20 people) were outside looking into dustbins picking paper from the ground, scattering refuse dumps and doing all manner of crazy stuff.
I could not comprehend what this was all about so I asked some of the newly gone insane people a few question and before you could say, “don’t do it”, I was also moving about looking into dustbins, acting crazy with rest of the bunch.
We all moved around from refuse dump to refuse dump like remote controlled zombies, I was also looking for it. A few found it in the refuse dumps and smiled, they rest continued searching. I found a few and also smiled.
The madness continued for almost an hour and as more people woke up and came out, they joined in the madness. In fact some people were called on cell phones to come out and join the madness. Surprising, people responded by doing just that.
We looked for it in every placed possible. Dust bins, refuse dumps (we have lots of that over here), bushes, and any place it could be found.
It is a normal scenario if the medically certified psychos do this. The truth is, they number of psychos on the loose in Nigeria can form quite a big village. They form part of the Nigerian society and is no big deal if the skim, swim or scan through dustbins, refuse dumps, bushes or trash cans.
But, today sane people joined the real crazy bunch to see or experience how is feels to be crazy .well dressed people, bankers, students, workers, parents and all, joined in to have the one time experience.
It did not happen in one city or state. It happened all over the country. People of different tribes all joined in.
The big question is what made 10 million people go crazy on the same day at the same time?
Ok, let me answer that question with another little question.
What would you do if the government of your country announced the night before that money would be dropped by helicopters on a certain morning, on a certain day, all over the country?
I don’t know about you, but I know what I would do and what a lot of people would do.
Some people would stay up all night waiting till morning for the money rain.
Frankly, I would do the same, (you can never know if the money would be dropped earlier than planned, maybe 3 hours earlier),especially if the money is in dollars.
People would fight under the money rain throwing away sanity and civility. Greed and self centeredness will be in full display.
Well, this not exactly what happened but is quite close to it. Though I really wish the government would consider my proposal of throwing money from helicopters. It would be fun to capture grown men struggling for money on camera.
So what happened?
MTN, on the pioneer telecommunication company in Nigeria, gave Nigerians the naira rain.
It wasn’t money dropped by airplanes or helicopters. It came in the form of recharged cards and recharge pins.
For some days, MTN’s service had been very horrible, subscribers found it hard to recharge their cell phones. It took many tries and long hours of wait before cell phones were credited.
Generally, Mobile telecommunication services in Nigeria have been appalling even after over five years since it was first introduced. All they telecommunication companies are guilty of this.
But that of MTN has always been goliath in nature. From incessant call drops to no network, no hearing, you name it.
That day, their bad service became a blessing to Nigerians.
That morning, formally loaded recharge cards and pins were discovered to be able to be reused again.
Yes, recharge pins that were formally used could be reused again.
What a blessing!!!
This is why 10 million Nigerians went mad that morning scattering dustbins, refuse dumps and trash cans searching for used MTN recharge cards and pins they could reuse.
It was so bad that people fought for used pins screaming “I saw it first”. People ran out of used recharge pins and pins to reuse.
Some people even thought of using used pins from other telecommunication networks, hoping for a miracle.
MTN loss over 5 billion naira that morning (my estimation).well, this is nothing compared how much they make from us on a normal day.
That amount is like a gold nugget from a newly discovered goldmine.
MTN has made more money in Nigeria than they have made in their home country, South Africa. They have done so with the poorest of services, no wonder they are not bothered about any form of improvement in a hurry.
Hope you not wondering why I joined in?
Who am I to say no?
I always try not to say no to free gifts. I don’t want to be seen as a rude person.
After like an hour, around 8 a.m., things went back to normal. The bonanza was over. Every one got back their sanity.
I was still in shock.
What beats me is how the word got out.
How did people know old pins could be reused? Was it from a staff of MTN or an individual whose lack of work or only work is to keep trying old pins hoping one day some kind of miracle will occur.
I could only help but ponder.
All sort of funny gifts had sometimes in the past come from MTN’s bad network. In the past, people have made calls with no credit on their phones, but this was the first of its kind.
It felt like Christmas in October.
Later on, I heard of people who loaded up to 10 000 Naira on their cell phones.
Why won’t they be happy?
Finally, before I sign off, I would love to make one request.
This is calling out to all other telecommunication networks in Nigeria to do the same thing MTN just did.
ZAIN, GLOBACOM, ETISALAT, VISAFONE, STARRCOMS, RELTEL take note, please mess up like MTN.
Yes, please try and mess up or have wacky services that would malfunction sometimes.
And to MTN, thank you for having a bad network and service.
Please feel free to repeat this again. We will not disappoint you. We will be waiting. We will not reject your gifts.
Posts
