Opinion: 9 Most Dangerous Jobs in Nigeria.
Although most people would joke that just living in Nigeria, was a dangerous job on its own (they would be right), in fact, the only reason it’s not on this list is that we aren’t paid. Between the crime rate, terrorism, and decayed infrastructure, the fact that you are actually alive reading this right now means you’re tougher than Rambo, but believe it or not, there are Nigerians who have it much worse than you do.
People who have to dance with death every time they go to work. So take a look at nine (9) of the most dangerous jobs in Nigeria;
9. Electrician:
Ok, so most of you are surprised at this, but if you had really thought about it, you would have realized that being an electrician in Nigeria is no picnic, especially for those that work for power distribution companies. Carrying their heavy wooden ladders in the hot sun, going to potentially hostile places to disconnect the electricity of potentially hostile people (and you can guess they won’t be happy about that). We’ve had reports of electricians being beaten by locals and in one case flogged by a state governor because the electricity went out when his birthday was going on, LOL (really it happened).
It’s like they’re not just electricians anymore but the power holding company itself, people blame them for everything.
The danger doesn’t end there folks, because even if by some miracle you are not one day beaten by locals, there’s still the problem of electrocutions from faulty wiring. Even electricians that work in private homes gets electrocuted, because either the owner of the house was too cheap to hire a proper electrician when he was building the house and instead did it himself or he hired a fake and only now when everything’s gone to ruin, does he hire a proper electrician to risk his life and fix it.
8. Construction Worker:
You’ve seen construction workers in other countries before, fully clothed people, with hard yellow helmets for protection, but if you’re in Nigeria you’ve got to know that’s far from the case here.
They work on buildings sometimes more than five stories high, with no protection whatsoever (because boxers don’t count) with most times the only support being long bamboo sticks, and with no health insurance, it would only take a misplaced foot on the bamboo to send them to their deaths, even if they’re on the ground the possibility of something falling on them is high, so of course, it’s dangerous.
7. Petrol Tanker Driver:
We’ve all seen or heard about tanker-related accidents and it’s never pretty, the damages are usually gruesome and fatalities high. Driving a normal vehicle through most Nigerian roads (which seem to have more potholes than roads) is difficult enough, but driving a really large vehicle, filled with inflammable liquid is just playing with danger. All it takes is just one wrong turn, a big enough pothole, or even a crazy driver and you are dead. Tanker drivers face the risk of agonizing death if burnt by fire or a quick one from the impact alone.
6. Telecommunication Mast Engineers/Technicians:
The danger in this one is pretty easy to see, isn’t it? All you have to do is look at your nearest mast, you see how tall it is, well it’s built by people and when it malfunctions, which it will every now and then someone has to repair it. That is where these engineers come in to fix these tall scary steel structures, most of them more than 40 feet high.
The good news is at least the ones I’ve seen were equipped for the job, but still, at those heights, anything can happen.
5. Armed Forces:
This Covers the air force, navy, and army. So basically, people who are allowed to wield weapons and shoot people, with such privileges (i.e. the guns), begs the question how are these groups of people in danger, to answer that I would advise you to look around.
We’ve got terrorists in the north bombing and killing people and had militants in the south killing and kidnapping people, and even though they face more danger than say the electrician, their paid almost the same if not less.
I’m not even sure they have health insurance, and if they eventually die the family is hardly compensated, think about it the government hardly pays its living workers, you think their families are going to get compensated if they die, no wonder they are always so angry.
4. Police Work:
I was kind of conflicted on whether to put this before or after the armed forces but then decided on after, because whatever soldiers were facing, the police were facing it too. For example, soldiers are killed by boko haram terrorists, and so are police officers. The soldiers don’t have to deal with everyday problems like kidnappers, armed robbers, or just crazy Nigerians but the police have to deal with that and still get killed by terrorists (now does that seem fair) all on top of a bad paycheck and no insurance or compensation.
3. Armed Robbery:
I know most of you are probably asking yourselves ” is armed robbery really a job “, well yes it is, sort of, but don’t just take my word for it according to www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/job, a job is a work that a person does regularly in order to earn money ( so as long as they rob regularly we’re good ), thank you, Merriam, now that I have been vindicated and you’re probably nodding in understanding, let’s continue.
OK, we’ve already cleared up the fact that armed robbery is indeed a job, so what makes it so dangerous? You ask, where should I start, oh I know “you “, not just you but everyone in Nigeria. Nigerians hate giving people things, especially money because we have so little of it. We even hate paying taxes because we don’t want to give the government our money, and then here comes a group of armed individuals coming to take your stuff or worst, cash, and of course you can’t do anything about it because they have guns, so at that moment you swallow your resistance and pain, so as not to get shot.
Then a few weeks after getting robbed, you see were a group of people just caught a robber. Right then you remember your new laptop that was stolen and suddenly it becomes personal. We’ve had incidences of robbers being beaten, maimed, and burnt in Nigeria, and though it’s very wrong, you can see where the hate stems from.
Even if they weren’t burnt to death by an angry mob, the law isn’t much better, since the Nigerian Police normally just shoots to kill, if you’re a robber (and they don’t say freeze ), and if they don’t kill you, you end up on in a holding cell till trial, which is almost worst than death. When you do eventually get trialed, you risk spending 14 years in jail, life in prison, or death if you killed someone. So next time you get robbed at gunpoint, just smile cause you know what’s coming to them.
Robbers are hated and killed by both the police and people, yet it’s only number 3 so what job is worst?
2. Oil Vandalism:
This applies under the same job definition as armed robbery. Nigerians are special in this case as it is one of the only countries, whose citizens steel oil. It goes to show you how bad things are that people would steal their own resources.
Though for some, the venture is extremely profitable, it is far from safe. Besides the risk of getting burnt to death in the very likely chance that something goes wrong and an explosion happens, in which case they would probably suffer an agonizing death, there’s also the fact the federal government has been on a war path with these vandals for several years now. Security forces as well as local vigilante groups have been tasked with catching them (and they don’t play nice).
Oil vandals risked the chance of getting burnt, shot, or prison time ( yep pretty dangerous ), yet it’s not number 1 so what job is more dangerous than everything on the list.
1. Manual River Sand Extractor:
I actually learned of this on an episode of don’t tell my mother on the discovery channel, when they came to Lagos and one of the places the guy visited was a river sand extracting site.
For those of you who don’t know what a manual river sand extractor does, let me enlighten you, they carry empty buckets to the floor bed of a river, fill it up with sand and carry it back up to the surface, pretty easy right? NO! There is no easy or safe part in it. First of all these rivers are very deep any inexperienced diver would drown in minutes, plus its a Nigerian river for crying out loud talk about murky, you wouldn’t be able to see two feet in front of you, and did I forget to mention that the guy had no equipment whatsoever not even goggles, the only thing he has, was the pocket and boxer shorts (what’s with manual workers and boxers in Nigeria ), these guys risk getting wounded or killed by sunken scrap metal or by dangerous aquatic life.
As you can imagine in jobs like this with ever-present danger, anything can go wrong and only the need for money and the decision not to be unemployed is the only reason why these guys haven’t quit.
So do you still think you have a bad job bad? Have your say.
Source: http://naijaaid.blogspot.co.id/2015/11/9-most-dangerous-jobs-in-nigeria.html?m=0
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