First From The Back

Has the entire world left Nigeria behind? I was tempted to title the blog “Africa is lagging”. But after a short conversation with a colleague on a project in Kenya this morning I quickly realised that while Africa is behind its peers on the global front, Nigeria is behind even its peers in Africa, but unfortunately the average Nigerian still believes that we are ahead.

Though its population and land mass is nothing in comparison to what we Nigerians boast of, Zambia has an up and running metro system; Niger and Ghana our neighbours have a power supply that is nearly never interrupted, though we are in the top 10 oil and gas producing countries globally, we don’t; Nigeria with the second largest economy in Sub Saharan Africa cannot compare to Kenya in terms of tourism; though a large number of Nigerian students graduate from the top business schools in the world (I personally know about 10 -15 people that will graduate from Wharton, HBS, INSEAD, Kellog, Fuqua this year) we cannot claim to have a transparent banking system, Nigerian doctors are consulted globally for their unique skill, yet women die daily in childbirth; We can boast of top class Engineers yet our roads rival those of countries that have recently come out of civil wars; and though we have brilliant programmers (at least 60% of the Nigerian educated people I have met over the last few years studied computer science) yet last weekend when I ‘voted’ for the first time in Nigeria I had to thumbprint on a piece of paper.

Nigeria right now is nothing short of an embarrassment, and that is to put it mildly. This weekend after my God mother called me to tell me she was waiting for me at our local polling station, I jumped out of bed and drove down. Apparently as I got there, accreditation was about to finish. Up until this point I truly did not know what I expected of the electoral process, alas I reached the front of the queue only for my card to be checked against a list, my finger marked with a felt tip pen, then the corper in charge tells me “ehnnnn, go and wait, we will soon begin” ... long story short, I waited in the scorching sun for God alone knows how long, was counted, queued, and was finally given a white piece of paper with a couple of logos printed on it (did I know which candidate was running under what party? Nope, were all the parties represented? Nope) at this point I was already feeling dizzy, but I sha managed to “press my hand” somewhere before in typical aje-butter fashion, fainted with a bout of sun stroke or whatever. It turns out that the whole process was for nothing, as the elections were cancelled not long after my dramatic performance.

From the sunstroke to the felt tip pen, to the pieces of paper apparently printed in Japan, this epitomises Nigeria. We have the resources (we spend 80 something billion on some voting machines), but we do not use them; We do not aim at improving the social and environmental aspects of our country (why should we be voting in the sun? Shouldn’t there be local government offices for this, I don’t think I ever voted in the streets in England), We don’t care much for internal control (how can a felt tip pen from goodies be what we use to accredit voters – next week I shall buy my own and accredit myself before I go, to reduce my waiting time). People may argue that the inefficiencies were built in to aid rigging, or what not, the issue is that we accept it, because year after year we use this primitive voting system without complain, and what’s more this mentality / acceptance of substandard is prevalent across every industry in Nigeria.

I have recently had the privilege of observing what I will call the “grass roots”, I may have been quite disconcerted by this at first (still am in all truth) but it has proved to be one of the most useful experiences (In Nigeria at least)because I have seen the heart of Lagos / Nigeria’s economy. Drifted off topic a bit, but what I am saying here is that in observing the way business is conducted, and work is done, it is so farrrrrrrr below global, and even African standards, and this sort of upsets me because Nigerians worldwide are implementing systems, documenting processes, innovating industries, yet back home our economy is suffering with archaic systems, processes, and governance.

Nigeria may be first at something, but it most certainly isn’t good governance, innovation, basic social welfare, good education, good transportation, and good healthcare systems. No, we are first at epically failing to keep up with the rest of the world. It will make me so happy when I see Nigerians using their skills and talents to transform Nigeria, as opposed to being consumed by the system, and conforming to the status quo. Having said that we can change things, shake them up, bring Nigeria to the 21st century, but things will go back to the same old, same old, because we have a culture of corruption, and we are adverse to change, however progressive. That’s a whole other topic in itself.

Xoxo.