A few years ago, the former American Secretary of State Colin Powell excited Nigerian bloggers with his widely publicized comments that Nigeria was a colony of fraudsters.

Perhaps to prove there was no malice to what many regarded as a sweeping slur on the integrity of the few Nigerians in our midst, the General later gave an insight into his deep emotional pull towards the continent in his published memoirs after a sweeping visit to Sierra Leone and Nigeria in 1992. The General also raised eyebrows when he did a jig during a ThisDay newspaper function held at the Royal Albert Hall last year.

It is hard to know what was playing on Powell's mind all this while, or what he thinks of Nigerians presently, but one thing is beyond dispute. In the past ten years and more, it seems to me that Nigerians, as a collective, have done everything to extend the frontiers of dishonesty and corruption to the extent that it is difficult to disprove that both have become part of our national culture over the years.

And if truth must be told, it is a tendency that defies even the time capsule stated above. We do not need a Colin Powell to remind us that much of our established customs and traditions, along with our legendary criminal docility, have only served to deepen corruption in our society without contributing to any meaningful development over time. A few examples will suffice at this point.

In most parts of South-East, burial ceremonies for dead relations remain expensive capital projects. Customs and traditions dictate that it must be so, even if there is abundant evidence that the bereaved cannot afford the costs of the elaborate ceremonies demanded.

The same wasteful and demanding traditions apply to marriages. Even in the relatively conservative north these days, wedding ceremonies are becoming expensive undertakings with serious consequences on our attitude to corruption and social discipline.

Nigerians not only celebrate elaborate funerals and weddings, they also look upon both as reflections of social status of the individuals concerned without questioning their sources of income. But are we not setting the stage for corruption or wetting our appetite for it when we fail to see the injustices and zero value of those customs as they are presently?

And because we have set such very low standards for our cultural values, we award honorary doctorates to drug pushers, pimps and armed robbers without blinking an eye. We claw at their feet in submission and still expect the same characters to lead us out of our pathetic state of under-development in the name of cultural expediency.

We conspire in the election and anointing of certified rogues as our leaders and representatives and expect the country to transform to a bed of roses overnight. We wail at the state of our collapsed social infrastructure without recognizing our individual contributions to the rot. We hold dear to customs that belong to the Stone Age and expect to modern state like Japan and Singapore.

Bankers express the need to turn the country into the financial hub for the continent publicly, and then in the night they conspire to turn our financial institutions, which, ordinarily, should be the objects of public trust, into de-facto Aladdin caves almost overnight.

We turn integrity on its head in the name of ethnic and regional affinity. We embrace gangsters. We honour their invitations to commit arson, and also spill blood on their behalf. We dance to their tunes of ethnic bigotry and exhibit our stupidity by calling each other parasites. We are blind to class issues and even the nuances of social justice. We message their gigantic egos, and fail to see beyond the present.

Worst still, we allow the same people shape the way we perceive important issues of national development through their ethnic prisms and thieving eyes. With such primitive mind-sets, government policies and actions must first pass the test of ethnic or regional acceptability before they become acceptable us!

In the past few weeks for instance, there has been a deliberate attempt to brand the recent salvage action embarked upon by the Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi in the banking sector, as a northern agenda, even when the facts point to the contrary.

Today, without the slightest doubt, the extent of our cultural dishonesty is at its zenith. Our leaders and elites profess the wish for the nation to be among the twenty largest economies in the world by the year 2020, but privately they succumb to same old vices of nepotism and regionalism. They mock international best practices in their deeds and expect the world to take them seriously.

But the road to civilization and development was paved with better values. For as long as we fail to treat each other as we would wish to be treated ourselves; for as long as we continue to succumb to primordial sentiments on national development issues meaningful economic development will continue to elude us.

For as long as we uphold armed and pen robbers; drug pushers, election riggers as well as ex-convicts as our role models in the name of regional or ethnic expediency, the more we will continue to be victims of under-development and social injustice.

And for as long as we fail to develop a mutually acceptable norms of 'right' and 'wrong' in the manner we respond to serious issues of national development, the more smaller countries in the sub-continent with superior moral and social values will continue to regard us as big for nothing. Experience has proven that our leaders and elites are among the most corrupt species ever known to man, but unless each and every one of us resolves to change our cultural view of their excess, they will remain passengers in our rapidly sinking titanic.

Caging the Carthage Eagles

By this time next week, the fate of Nigeria as it seeks to qualify for the FIFA 2010 World Cup scheduled for South Africa next June would have been virtually decided. If Nigeria wins, it will be a well-deserved birthday present for the nation, coming barely three weeks to our golden anniversary.

But if we fail to win or concede defeat -God forbid- I will not like to be in the shoes of coach Shu'aibu Amodu or his assistant Daniel Amokachi. Both are likely to be given the heave-ho in if we fail, while the old debate on the need to hire a foreign coach will come to the front burner once again.

Still, my heart tells me that we will win handsomely even if my head instructs me to be cautious. I have good reasons for my optimism though. Since he took over Amodu has exhibited the type of professionalism I never thought he was capable of. It takes that and courage to drop the likes of Obafemi Martins and Yakubu Ayegbeni for lack of match fitness. He is also proving to be an efficient manager of some of the biggest egos known to world football.

That aside, I see the Tunisians chocking the midfield and looking to catch Nigeria on the break at every opportunity especially when our full backs overlap. Mobility and crisp short passing will be the key to their game, with runners seeking to break through either side of midfield especially when our defence is flat.

That is why I am delighted an immobile defender like Danny Shittu is not an option for this game. I also pray that Joseph Yobo does not experience one of his habitual lapses in concentration in the tick of battle. I suspect however, that the threat posed by Tunisian counter attacks will force Amodu to deploy a sweeper. We shall see.

Either way the game will be an immense tactical battle. The key for Nigeria will be patience while hoping that the crowd stays faithful as they seek to unlock the Tunisian defence. The key man for the Eagles to me will be Chinedu Obasi for his skill and trickery on the ball.

I wish the Nigerians good luck.