Once upon a time, while recuperating from a serious ailment, I requested for a mat, to sleep on the balcony of my former residence, where fresh air was guaranteed.
In my mind, I was expecting the local mat, made with raffia palm. Instead, I was offered a bag-like contraption, which, when unfolded, turned out to be something I could conveniently lie on. This was a picnic mat, made, of course, by the Chinese.
Much later, at a party I attended, above item was one of the souvenirs unashamedly distributed to guests.
Back to that afternoon, I could no longer sleep. My mind was agitated. All sorts of questions raced through my mind.
The following morning, I took the mat to the office, pinned it on the noticeboard with a sign, “See What The Chinese Did To Our Mat.”
If I recall rightly, this happened when the Great Recession (of 2008) had begun to bite. I had been telling my colleagues that instead of waiting for clients to come with briefs, as used to be the case, we should begin to create these jobs ourselves; which meant not allowing any opportunity to pass us by, or, as I say, these days, we have to TRY EVERYTHING.
I gave out my copy of Richard Branson’s book, Business Stripped Bare, so that everyone in the office could read it, one after the other. My hope was that they would encounter, and be inspired – as I did – by, among other things, Branson’s idea of “creating small entrepreneurial ‘war rooms’ to tackle big issues.” We eventually created our own War Room and came up with a few fresh ideas, which we executed with profitable rewards.
Thank you.
So, when last year or so, I was reading Flashes of Thought, the book by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and came to where he talks about the UAE government, in 2012, generating “over 20,000 fresh ideas to simplify and improve its services,” and that, “(the government’s) goal is to create an environment that encourages people to generate innovative ideas, implement them and constantly measure their effectiveness. Innovation is the capital of the future,” I became agitated again.
[Note: I have bought several copies of the book as prizes during some of my training programmes, and I have one that I plan to send to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari; I think I should buy another one for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Both of them must read this book, or re-read it, if they have already done so.
I said: I was agitated …
In 2005, I wrote a piece for the Nigeria Monthly, a publication created by our company, TaijoWonukabe Limited, for Nigeria’s information ministry, to accentuate the positives about Nigeria.
I was roving around the cyberspace and happened upon a collection of what the science and technology ministry called “PROFILES ON SELECTED COMMERCIALISABLE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (R&D) RESULTS.”
There, I found that Nigeria, a football-crazy country, could actually produce leather footballs, from almost-100 per cent local materials. I found that the country could produce electrical porcelain insulators from Nigerian clays, available in all parts of Nigeria. I found lots and lots of process inventions awaiting large-scale production. My piece, with several accompanying pieces, was the magazine’s cover story for that month. According to the the then political head of the ministry, Turner T Isoun, a professor and once a Visiting Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, the R & D results produced by the research institutes “had tremendous potentials for the nation’s quest for technological development, job creation and national productivity.”
The current minister, Ogbonnaya Onu, who in a previous political career several decades ago, started a Technological Village Project in the state where he was governor; he surely understands that science and technology could take Nigeria to a “height unimagined today” but I wonder if he is agitated enough as I was, when I watched the video of the Hyperloop One 11.8.16 teaser showing how the folks in the UAE would, in the nearest future, spend minutes for travels that now take hours.
I was agitated when I read, around the same time, that the UAE kicked off its second annual Innovation Week on Sunday (20 November) “with some of the country’s best and brightest showcasing the newest technologies and modern-day problem solving methods.” During the Week, one report has it, “all the UAE cities, towns and villages will celebrate talented and their outstanding ideas for seven days.”
I was agitated when I saw the video of the young girl in the opening picture, Juliet Ekoko, solving mathematical problems to emerge the junior winner of that competition. As I finished watching, I wondered what happens next to Ekoko and her ilk, who for the past 19 years have won this competition, which the sponsors aim at discovering Nigeria’s future inventors.
As I worked on this piece, I read about one Victor Olalusi, who in 2013, “scored 5.0 Cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA) in Russian National Research Medical University, Moscow (RNRMU).” Thankfully, he was honoured (in 2015) by Nigeria’s ministry of education as well as the government of his State (Ondo), but what happened next? Who knows where he is?
Nigeria has a surfeit of geniuses and near-geniuses on almost all fields of human endeavour, but we either hear that they are excelling and being honoured abroad – the Jelani Aliyus, Bennet Omalus, Olurotimi Baderos, et cetera – or, if in Nigeria, they are seeking funds to do this or that.
The most recent one I read is about a Nigerian university’s department of chemical engineering which set out in 2011 to “construct a 1,000 barrel-capacity refinery, but lack of funding limited it to one, which would now be refining one barrel per day,” Perhaps, the Nigeria LNG could be interested in this. This world-class company has a Science Prize (worth US$100,000) which, for several years now, has not produced a winner. The one for 2016, aimed at finding solutions to the malaria scourge, was extended to 2017 because, after a nine-month search, no winner could be found. NLNG also a University Support Programme aimed at “developing engineering education in Nigeria.”
In 1986, Nigeria came up with a National Science and Technology and Innovation Policy. Even with several revisions, the last one being in 2013, it wasn’t until 18 February 2014 that the National Research and Innovation Council was inaugurated, and the Council met for the first time in January 2016. I didn’t make that up. Nigeria’s Minister of Science and Technology Ogbonnaya Onu, said it and you can read it here.
The question is:
What has the Technical Advisory Committee for the Council, which the minister inaugurated in March, been doing? Are they agitated enough to see with UAE’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum that “advanced civilisations were built on the efforts of their sons, who had devised innovative solutions for all challenges. Those civilisations that stopped working, learning and striving for the future collapsed, and were forgotten by history.”
It’s time for Nigeria to move to the Table of Men and reach for greatness as this Guinness advert implores.
That won’t happen, unless Nigerians collectively become agitated. No, it won’t.
BY THE WAY
I saw this picture on social media. I can’t remember exactly where. Whoever shot it or wherever the molded-eba originated, be sure that you are acknowledged.
When I saw it, I began to think in terms of how to create #moulds which would allow for #measurable #mass-produced eba in restaurants, perhaps in acceptable world-stand proportions, in line with healthy choices in eating that is now the rage.
There are certainly new and newer ways of doing old things.
- Just explore them.
- Own them.
November 24, 2016 at 4:44 pm
FROM MY MAILBOX
Thanks for sending this. Big mouthful food for thought.
The spirit of innovation and self reliance is being aggressively smothered by a suffocating environment where merit does not take one far, and mediocrity and outright intellectual emptiness are elevated!
How many Nigerians can have the “luxury ” of creative and innovative thinking while trying to survive present economic depression and lack of basic infrastructures, coupled with blatant injustice and total lack of respect for human life — that of Christians in Northern Nigeria especially, with the active collaboration of government.
A. Sowunmi.
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November 24, 2016 at 4:45 pm
Dear Sis.,
Very correct, but Nigerians must not fall into collective despondency, and Obe’s essay represents one of the ways we can be nudged into actions and made aware of the fact that they still have the capability to stem a bit of the poverty that besets majority of our people.
Fond regards, Ma.
TOLA.
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November 24, 2016 at 4:14 pm
FROM MY MAILBOX
FROM MY MAILBOX
I read the piece that you referenced in your email.
It is not enough to be agitated by something. The way I see it is that one gets agitated by what one understands. Those that don’t understand will not be agitated. What that means is that if one is agitated about something, one needs to step up to the challenge of doing something about it.
Giving someone a book to read does not guarantee that that person will be similarly impacted by the book. Those of us that are agitated by something or the other in Nigeria, should step forward and formulate an action plan, not just write about it. You already know my own story. I may be delayed, but I am not deterred. In a way, destiny reveals itself to us via the things that we are agitated about.
The mystery of finding one’s calling is solved when one arrives at the intersection of agitation and preparation. The only remaining factor is the time that needed resources will become available for action. We see what those with resources do with what they have.
Eni to lori ko ni fila. Eku odun o. (A Happy Thanksgiving.)
Ayinde.
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November 24, 2016 at 4:25 pm
My dear Prof.,
Thank you very much for this. Of course you – especially – and a VERY few others of our people, occupy a special plane in the dedication and commitment you’ve put into converting AGITATION into concrete efforts.
I do believe, though, that Taiwo Obe’s American police-type APB – an All Points Bulletin – is a necessity because our people become too complacent and they easily give up fighting/striving, and do need this kind of reminder on perhaps other ways to focus.
I’m personally aware of Taiwo’s approach to rallying people from complacency into action even though may be not on a large scale. Many Nigerian journalists today can vouch for that.
I think being agitated can lead to results. After repeatedly telling people about how easy it is to grow your own peppers and other such small garden items, I’ve influenced quite a few people which, while not amounting to perhaps a dent, shows how people could be made to get off their despondency and act. An essay on the same subject that I wrote for my NATION column in ’09 or thereabout: IF YORUBAS CANNOT GROW THEIR FOOD THEY MUST STARVE or a title reflecting that got over a hundred sms supportive messages. That was big because Nigerians are not good at commenting on subjects they read unless it’s a subject about which different ethnic groups can set at each other.
Both these and other such can add up, and even those in positions of authority at various levels of governance seems to be picking up some of these ideas.
We’ll keep knocking on wood hoping for luck. Action is what we need on these matters because without actions, ideas are just those, and not worth the grammar or the presentation material.
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November 24, 2016 at 4:27 pm
FROM MY MAILBOX
Many thanks, Prof. for your comments on my essay, a contribution to the continuous discourse in the land.
It shall be my delight if Prof’s comments are posted on the article on LinkedIn, so that we can have a full marketplace of ideas and engage our people.
I’m reminded by an answer to a question in an interview by John Mount, vice-president, National Retail Sales Marketing of The Coca-Cola Company: “The key is engagement. We all have been a part of something that we felt could have been better if we’d done this or that. Be vocal and share your thoughts on what can be done differently, then engage in that recommendation and make it come to fruition. You will distinguish yourself from the pack. I read a great book that was written by Lou Pritchett early in my career called Stop Paddling & Start Rocking the Boat. The idea is not to be a disrupter, but to be a change agent for good. You will only make it better for everyone involved.”
Taiwo Obe
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November 24, 2016 at 2:45 pm
FROM MY MAILBOX
Brothers /Sisters
UNITY is Strength. The more we are together as Yoruba Nation, the better for all of us .
Let all our governors put their differences away, and unite for the sake of development.
Á ṣe ṣe,o.
Opawoye
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November 24, 2016 at 3:43 pm
Thanks, Doctor for the words of wisdom.
Greetings,
TOLA.
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November 24, 2016 at 4:04 am
Dear auntie,
Ha, ah …… I laughed!
Innovative ideas are not two for one kobo;they are God-given. And a Law
must be obeyed: Love your neighbour as thyself.
Too many wicked souls in Nigeria is the fundamental reason for the backwardness and everything that drags the country down.
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November 24, 2016 at 3:30 pm
Dear Prof.,
Too many problems lie at the bottom of Nigeria’s problem but as a Yoruba saying goes: igi t’ó ré lu ‘ra ti pọ̀ (colloquial translation: many trees have fallen one over the other), and it would call for deliberate effort to remove all, but start from the tree that fell last is the only way to have them all removed.
The state of helplessness and despondency PLS looking for solutions where none lies at personal and institutional/government levels can be helped through essays like Taiwo Obe’s which can rouse people and authorities at various levels.
I understand you, Dear Prof. but where do we start but turn to even basic ideas that everybody may know but which the pervasive corruption that leads to people seeing how quickly they can become rich never consider.
Thanks, and my regards,
TOLA.
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