“Follow who know road“, but what happens when the person in front doesn’t actually know road? And you stay silent because you believe they do? Nigeria is a high power-distance culture. What that means is that we take hierarchy very seriously. Respect is a major theme here.
You must address everyone by their proper title. Respect to whom respect is due. We call people older than us auntie/uncle. We also call people who outrank us at work sir and ma’am, instead of their actual name. This high power-distance makes Nigerians more vulnerable to the authority bias.
This feels similar to the representativeness bias discussed in a previous post, but they are different. What makes authority different is the power dynamic involved. Our brain automatically projects competence on people with titles, wealth, and credentials.
The authority bias is a thinking loophole that makes us think someone we project authority on always:
- knows better than us,
- is better than us,
- is more accurate than us
In Nigeria, we project authority on the wealthy, uniformed people, the titled, older people, parents, and elders. This leads to an internal pull to always comply with what they want. It affects our thinking, and ultimately our money.
Religion
The obedience of authority is ingrained in us through our religious texts and upbringing. In the story of Adam and Eve, they disobeyed God, and now all their descendants suffer the results of their disobedience. Also, in the story of Abraham, God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac, his only child, as a test of faith. Isaac, who, by the way, Abraham waited to have after 25 years of barrenness.
Elders
It was further ingrained in the Nigerian society as we were growing up, that a lack of obedience to the authority of our parents, teachers, and the elderly would lead to punishment in the form of flogging and scolding, or being deprived of certain things. This grooming sometimes causes us to turn off our critical thinking in the presence of authority figures and simply obey. And it’s why even in Nigeria, we are not really a country of people who challenge the authority of political leaders when we are unhappy. When it comes time to protest, we almost implicitly know that there’s going to be a consequence for that. Case in point, the Lekki Toll Gate massacre.
The Consequences
In the aviation industry, there used to be a recurring pattern of plane crashes. When the investigation began and the black box was retrieved, they listened to the pilot’s conversations. The common findings were that the co-pilots were aware of the issues that ultimately led to the eventual crash of the plane, but hesitated to correct and challenge the senior pilot.
This was more common in countries with high power-distance. Even when these co-pilots raised objections, they used weak, non-assertive language because of the fear of contradicting the captain. Examples like Korean Air 801, the 1997 Tenerife airport disaster, and the United Airlines Flight 173 crash in 1978, among others. The devastating result of the first officer not speaking up was that the plane crashed, killing everyone on board, despite the fact that the required information to prevent it was present in the cockpit before the crash. It is wild that someone knew instinctively that they were right, but because they didn’t want to correct someone senior to them, they held back– and died instead.
This led the aviation industry to develop a system called Crew Resource Management that teaches airplane crews to communicate assertively and be okay with challenging the captain without having it be seen as a sign of disrespect.
The Finance Guru
In our financial lives, many of us defer to experts or financial gurus in finance because of their outward symbols, like their suits, uniforms, titles, agbada, senator outfits, certifications, or luxury cars. They make use of financial jargon that you don’t understand. When you engage with them, you have doubts; their fees seem high, the investment doesn’t sound right. But you fail to do your research or even challenge this advisor because you fear defying this advisor’s perceived expertise and authority. The result is losing decades of potential earnings to high fees, bad investments, and, in the worst case, to scammers that were pretending to be financial advisors.
So, double-check their credentials, their results, and the testimonials. Listen to your gut instincts and the red flags. Don’t take things at face value just because they’re coming from an authority figure. The hardest lesson from the authority principle is that you can’t pay your way out of thinking for yourself. When you outsource your financial judgment to someone else’s authority, title, status, or credentials, you outsource your financial future.
Mindful Naira exists not to become your new authority, but to destroy the need for one. We encourage you to think for yourself and challenge the reasoning of all your sources, including this publication. This is not a guru-reader relationship; it is a partnership in critical finance thinking. The ultimate authority in your financial life must always be you.
Divine Authority
The dark side of authority is when people outsource their reasoning to their religious leader. In extreme cases, we’ve seen Marshall Applewhite of the Heaven’s Gate Religious Movement. Some call it a cult. In 1997, he was able to convince 38 followers to commit mass suicide. They first believed that they would ascend to heaven while alive via a UFO that would take them to a different planet. This eventually changed to them believing that their bodies were mere containers, and so they had to die in order to ascend to this new planet.
There was also Jim Jones of Jonestown, who convinced over 900 people to drink a cyanide-poisoned drink, Kool-Aid. And they drank, knowing that it would kill them. The phrase drinking the Kool-Aid was coined from this incident. It refers to when people think like sheep and follow the herd.
Closer to home, we have Reverend King, who slapped, knocked, sexually assaulted, and flogged his own church members when they did something wrong. Reportedly, he even made them pay money for their sins. Pay, as in, cash. He burned one of his church members alive because he allegedly caught her fornicating. She was one of five he attempted to burn.
Despite King being sentenced to death, his church members still worship him a decade later and celebrate his birthdays in the papers, yearly.
How is it that one man’s mind was able to override the minds of hundreds of others?
Authority at this level doesn’t persuade; it commands. It becomes sacred, untouchable.
Touch not my annointed, and do my prophet no harm
Psalm 105:15
Religious Financial Exploitation
When that level of religious authority is established, the brain follows a simple command: obey. You become a zombie soldier. In Africa, we’ve heard of religious figures asking members to sell their land, house, and properties, and donate the proceeds to the church, and people obey. Reverend Jim Jones of People’s Temple asked his members to sell their properties and transfer their assets to him. The proceeds from sales and members’ paychecks were turned over to the church.
He also pressured members to quit their jobs or practices to join the temple full-time, making them feel dependent on the church for their livelihood. Many of them were doctors, engineers, lawyers, people competent and stable in other areas of life, and yet they obeyed. They destroyed their financial future because one man with authority told them to.
This isn’t distant history; look around you in Nigeria, and you see the same shades of obedience. Religious leaders tell members to sow a seed or pay 10% of their income as a tithe. Sometimes people go to extreme lengths using their savings or important funds, in the hope that the money comes back tenfold, divinely.
No one is saying don’t pay tithe or give to the church. We’re saying, run it through your rational brain first. Interrogate if you are paying money to your religious authority simply out of fear of defying authority. Ask: Can I afford this? Will my finances survive after this? Is this gift coming from faith or fear? The financial guru with the fancy title and the cult leader demanding a financial sacrifice are using the same psychological weapon: The Authority Bias.
Familial Authority
We also see this mental shortcut play out in our personal relationships with our parents and, even, our older siblings and relatives. When your parents ask you for money, either to be given or to be borrowed, we think, I mustn’t question my elders’ needs, it’s disrespectful. That’s because the established power dynamic between you and your parents since you were little was command, and obey, or obey before complaining.
Sometimes the demands are constant or for very frivolous reasons. You have bills, you want to save and invest, but you feel the psychological pressure to obey. They borrow constantly but never return it, but you don’t have the heart to decline when they ask. And even when you choose not to obey, you can’t shake off the guilt.
You must have some compassion for yourself and realize that the reason you feel this way is because of the authority bias. You must find a way to develop boundaries of steel that protect you from their demands.
The Doctors’ Uniform Hijacking Trust
In the 1940s – 1960s, cigarette companies like Camel and Lucky Strike ran advertisements with slogans like More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarettes. Some of the men in those ads weren’t even real doctors, just actors in lab coats. Yet people believed them. Even before conclusive long-term studies confirmed that smoking wasn’t good for the body, the public knew it wasn’t good because of the constant coughing and shortness of breath that came with smoking. Sometimes these ads use real doctors who lied blatantly about how good smoking a particular brand was, all for financial gain. They exploited the image of a doctor.
See Past The Uniform
In Nigeria, companies like Dettol or Toothpaste Brands advertise their products using a doctor to add legitimacy. As of 2025, Golden Terra Oil uses a doctor in a lab coat in a YouTube ad to advertise their oil. The doctor in the ad tells viewers to put their oil in the fridge and that if it solidifies, it’s bad (saturated fat). And if it doesn’t, that means it’s good (non-saturated fat oil), which is funny because that’s not a definitive test that works all the time. For example, olive oil, which is healthy and high in unsaturated fat, can solidify in the fridge, while some refined vegetable oils stay liquid because they’ve been heavily processed, not because they are healthier.
When Nigerians see a doctor in an ad, they are not seeing a brand; they are seeing expertise. You think: this person knows better than I do. They wouldn’t lie. But the truth is, the doctor may be just another model in a lab coat. It’s always up to you to verify the claims that authority figures present to you to influence your buying decisions. They are counting on you not questioning the perceived expertise of the authority put in front of you.
Scamming Doctor
In another case of image exploitation, there was a show on Netflix called Dirty John. It’s about a man called John Meehan, a romance scammer who dated a woman called Deborah Newell. He basically pretended to be a doctor who had just returned from Doctors Without Borders just to gain access to her life and finances. He wore his scrubs all the time to really sell it.
Because she thought he was a doctor, she trusted him too fast and let him into her life. He conned her out of a lot of money and tried to isolate her from her family. Her kids exposed him; they fought, he divorced her, and tried to get half her assets, which failed. He eventually got killed in self-defense when he tried to attack one of Deborah’s children.
Trust, but verify.
– Russian Proverb
Other examples in life:
- In traffic, if someone in a reflective vest comes out of nowhere and starts controlling traffic, they don’t even have to be a road safety official or be wearing a jacket at all. The confidence in them going to the junction to direct traffic instills authority, and that’s why no cars are waiting around to ask them questions about whether they have the right to direct cars. Confidence, bravado, and loudness sell. That’s why people who look the part and act the part portray confidence. It’s why salesmen or even con men in fitted suits/agbadas and flashy cars catch our attention and make us want to buy whatever they are selling. Audacity can front as authority, too.
- Products from brands with tags such as Dermatologically Tested or NAFDAC Approved; product labels like New York Times bestseller on books, Twenty-five years of Experience, As featured in CNN, Forbes, and Time Magazine on websites. Just because they say so doesn’t mean it’s true.
Going Forward
As Nigerians, because of our high regard for status, respect, and titles, we must acknowledge how vulnerable we are to automatically treating authority figures and what they say as gospel.
It doesn’t even have to really be an authority. Those who seek to exploit us can make whatever they present to us look, move, or smell like a legitimate authority figure, to get at our money, attention, time, and energy.
We must stay aware of this risk, do our own research, and be critical thinkers for any and every information we consume, especially with regard to our money and our life force. The day you stop surrendering your judgment to titles, uniforms, or spiritual authority is the day you take full ownership of your financial life.
Have you ever been in a situation where you trusted an authority figure and regretted it?