Tapswap - a Reflection of Our Decaying Values

Less than a week ago, we were having a light discussion in the office with my colleagues, and two of them told me about a new money-making trend among Nigerian youths.

“All they do is tap the screen of their phones to make money”, I was told.

In my mind, I was like, “How else can we redefine madness other than this?”

We’re at it again, making money doing almost nothing.

After the conversation, as usual, I punched my computer keyboard to ask Mr. Google about this crazy trend. I wasn’t so fascinated by what I saw, so I ignored it.

Yesterday, a sister reached out to me, expressing her concern about this trend. She complained about how it has completely carried the youths away and made them redundant.

I responded with my opinion, which is what I want to share with you today.

But before I share my opinion, let’s explore in brief what this is all about.

What’s Tapswap?

TapSwap (TAPS) is a popular Telegram-based crypto game where players earn TAPS coins by tapping their screen, completing daily tasks, and participating in various in-game activities.

The accumulated coin can eventually be converted into a real money.

In simple terms people make money by simply tapping their phone’s screen. The more you tap, the more you earn.

This is why you see people tapping their phone’s screen ceaselesslly.

We all have to agree that we’ve failed as a community. We have allowed our moral values to degenerate to such an extent that a young boy full of energy and potential is content with making money by tapping the screen of his phone.

About 20 years ago, when I was younger and living in Lagos Island, I remember being sent on an errand to somewhere around the Tom Jones-Idumota axis of Lagos Island.

After I was done and on my way back, I was stopped by a danfo bus where there was a loudspeaker shouting and calling people to come for an offer. I approached them, and they said I was going to play a game. They had a sheet of paper full of smaller stickers, and I was told I’d choose a sticker and whatever was revealed under the sticker would be mine forever.

Inside the bus, they had items like pressing irons, cookers, and other mouth-watering electronics. I played the game and won a Philips pressing iron. One of them reached out to the bus and handed the iron to me.

But that’s not all. I had to sell the iron back to them (I can’t recall now whether this was by choice or compulsory) , and they’d pay me immediately. I saw them doing it for others, and that’s when the upbringing bulb switched on in my brain — “Rafiu ranti omo eni ti iwo nshe o” (meaning: Rafiu, remember the child of whom you are). On another note, I thought to myself, “What will I use this amount of money for? Where will I tell Mom and Dad I got it from?

How can I even spend the money without them knowing?” With all these thoughts in my brain, I dropped everything for them and ran. In the first place, I knew I must account for why I returned from my errand late, talk more of explaining where I got the money from.

This was the type of upbringing we had; this is the type of society we lived in, and this is why we still maintain our sanity today — Alhamdulillah.

Fast-forward to now, our society is so much eroded that no one asks questions such as, ‘where do you get this from’.

People now celebrate money so much that we don’t even bother about the value of the money. We no longer bother about whether or not we even need the money in the first place.

All we want to do is make millions and brag about it on social media — whether that million will buy you a bag of rice or not is inconsequential.

That’s why you see a small boy of less than 15 whose parents are struggling to pay his JAMB and WAEC fees wanting to use an iPhone. He doesn’t even know what it’s used for except for WhatsApp and Facebook, but he has to feel among.

And once the boy achieves that ambition by whatever crooked means, his parents will be proud of him even when they’re yet to pay for WAEC.

This is why they’ll do tapping and all sorts of nonsense to make money.

It’s crazy, and this is a terrible warning sign for us all.

Another disgusting implication of this making-money-at-all-cost syndrome is that it makes the youth lazy and less productive. To tap and make money, all you need is an Android phone and data to start tapping. Of what personal and economic value is this, for God’s sake?

In the end, they sit down lazy, doing almost nothing, waiting for the next Ponzi scheme to make money.

If you know them, kindly tell them that real wealth is not made this way. Real wealth is made with real economic value exchange and not through tapping the phone screen. And mind you, it takes time to build real wealth.

When the youths are physically and intellectually lazy, the entire society will pay for it, sooner or later.

Finally, I suspect that this sort of intellectual programming through cheap money-making tactics is a way to prevent developing and underdeveloped nations from progressing.

Obviously, the most important element of national development is quality human capital resources. Once that is missing, we’re done for.

Imagine having someone like Aliko Dangote in each of the geopolitical zones of Nigeria? Just imagine the spiral economic effect.

A few years ago, when Dangote was building his refinery, I read that they had to import workers from India. This happened for many reasons, but one of them is that they couldn’t get enough skilled personnel to handle some of the tasks in Nigeria.

So, instead of these children learning valuable skills, they’re busy tapping phone screens.

As a founder, I can tell you how long we have been in search of a competent digital marketer who can handle our type of startup without success. How about getting competent teachers who can teach online? Yet, our youths, who are supposed to learn these valuable skills, are busy tapping phone screens.

I really pity our future.

Unfortunately for our nation, professionals with quality intellectual potential are moving out of the country, and those left behind are tapping screens to make money.

What will be the future of this country if we continue like this?

We therefore need to start encouraging our youths and supporting them to learn valuable long term skills. Truth is, there are skills you can learn that’ll make you lots of money and still maintain your dignity and value.

Dear parents, with due respect, this is me warning you again to be careful. About three years ago, I wrote about the baby mama syndrome and its implications. See where we are today: young girls don’t want to marry anymore.

They just want to get pregnant and have their own babies to raise by themselves. In the next 20 years, I can only wonder about the number of fatherless adults we will have on our streets.

As a parent, the responsibility is on you to control this menace. If you don’t, we’ll all drown together.

Thank you