Another way to look at the Nigerian experience...

As an academic excercise (put your aside) lets draw a parallel between Colombia and Nigeria here, the last paragraph is of interest to me here. Thoumi put it in far better language than I could ever have. The complete journal article is here.

...illegal drugs are only one branch of the Colombian criminal industry sector. Besides being a principle drug producer, Colombia is also the world's largest manufacturer of counterfeit U.S. dollars; it is the main producer and user of assassins for hire (sicarios); it is the first or second Latin American exporter of prostitutes; it produces very high quality counterfeit documents, particularly passports; and it is a large producer of pirated software and CDs. Colombia is the only country of which this author knows where owners of urban lots and vacant houses place large "not for sale" signs to prevent fraudulent sales. Colombia is a country where the state has been a bounty, and where white-collar crime has grown dramatically judging by frequent newspaper reports. In Colombia, soldiers find a hidden guerrilla treasure accumulated through drug trafficking, extortion, and kidnappings and consider it normal to keep such treasures as a "prize" for serving in the armed forces. It is a country where police officials negotiate the transfer of captured cocaine with drug traffickers and where the terms "millionaire stroll" and "throw away person" were coined as euphemisms for a quick kidnapping of a person taken to A.T.M. machines to empty his or her bank account and for social cleansing. All these facts show that Colombia has developed a competitive advantage in economic activities that require law breaking or illegal skills. They also highlight the predatory nature of Colombian capitalism and the illegitimacy and weakness of property rights in the country.

All these facts highlight the need to understand why some behaviors that, although found in other countries, are more common in Colombia. During the last several years, Colombian scholars have begun to explore why Colombian society imposes few, if any, controls on individual behavior...Indeed, every Colombian has a high degree of freedom to establish his or her own norms. Because of this freedom, Colombians show great individual creativity and various degrees of social discipline. The lack of social controls produces individuals with remarkable behaviors: anybody who respects the law and the rights of others does so because of individual convictions, as do those who break the laws. Success in Colombia is individual, not social or collective. Loyalty normally extends only to people close to oneself because without their help it is impossible to survive in the midst of a hostile environment. "The net result is an abundance of anti-social behaviors: individual rationality predominates over collective rationality"...

My take on these..

We are rational beings and also products of the system that surrounds us, we seek to make decision that bring forth the maximum benefit to us. Nigeria is in its present state because of the system, not the people, Did I hear you say the system is made up of the people, okay the point is that there is a difference between, people as indidcuduals and people as a collective. To make matters worse, it is not in the interest of the individual Nigerian to make a change. Any meaningful change will arise from the collective, will power of the people. That brings me to the question of the day. Do we, as a collective, still believe in Nigeria to make things work?

Other peoples views. from Marginal revolution...

The article spun off some interesting discussions; some of the comments I have pasted below.

one quibble with a factum. In Nigeria, it is also commmon to put up "This building is NOT for Sale" signs, particularly in Lagos. Not that it makes things any better that Colombia is not the only place.

Another dude comments...

Most of this is really bad, but, would we call the Napoleonic era British Navy corrupt because it divvied up captured prizes among its crews? We should distinguish between what's anti-social or destructive and what's simply a different cultural norm.