A Nigerian writer identified as Paul Geek has penned down an open letter to all internet fraudsters in Nigeria.
In his piece, he tried to sensitize young Nigerians involved in online fraud on the damages it causes on the economy and the victims, and also gave enlightenment on how they could utilise their time on the internet for positive reasons.
He wrote:
You don’t have to be a YahooGuy to make money online. Apart from the fact that illegal wealth isn’t sustainable, illegal businesses are very addictive. You also lose your creative mind. There are 1001 legitimate businesses you could do online & earn a decent income!
You can make livings and meet ends without defrauding anyone or mailing foreigners to send you dollars in the name of 419. Admittedly, most advertised Internet businesses aren’t as profitable as we’re made to believe. However, a lot of them pay.
The biggest challenge with newbies is that they are over expectant and over ambitious, so the moment their expectations aren’t met as hurriedly as expected, they give up & join the millions who say Internet businesses don’t pay. Nothing good comes cheap!
It troubles me a lot seeing millions of our youths wasting precious time debating bitter politics, religion, tribal issues, etc, when such time could be used productively; for people with unemployment challenge. We need to have a sober reflection as youth.
The easiest & fastest skills/profession anyone could learn today are digital skills. With digital skills, your chances of getting a decent job increases by over 50% at the global labour market & you could work from the comfort of your home in Ajegunle, for a client/firm in Canada.
There are hundreds of thousands of Indians who earn a living from the comfort of their homes. They have no govt or corporate job. In fact, a lot of them don’t even have degrees. They only need to learn basic English & they’re good to go. I have hired hundreds of them, too.
We are now in an era where what you know (skills) beyond your conventional educational qualifications, is as or even more important than your educational qualifications, and the earlier we accept this reality, the better for us, especially as young people.
Nevertheless, govts at all levels must also be interested in championing this new direction of thinking as a means of solving youth restiveness & unemployment. This could be done through institutional framework restructuring, designing policies policies that will transform our economy into a digital economy and human-capital development. These have proven to create more jobs in the developing nations. Check Rwanda if I lie.
To achieve this, our leaders, especially political leaders, must first realise that they lack basic understanding of the digital world, then make efforts to learn & understand it; because you only give what you have & you cannot promote what you don’t believe. The time is NOW!
More Nigerian youths have access to the internet than Indians youths, but more Indian earn a living online than Nigerians. The difference? They are taught digital skills from primary school, while an average Nigerian attends his first computer training after graduation. What do they teach them? You already know.
The digital industry can employ more than most govt establishments, if govts could create the enabling environment. It would create more jobs & reduce the burden of employments from govt, as serious govts have little to do with direct job creation. They rather serve as ‘enablers’.
Fellas, the time is NOW to birth a new generation of radical thinkers. Are you ready?
