BUILDING AN INNOVATIVE NIGERIA

It is pathetic to note that the rate of change in products and services development in this part of the world is very slow. You know, in the average African village if someone died 100 years ago, and suddenly wakes up now, the person will easily find his way around the village. Because most of our villages are still almost exactly the same way
they were about a hundred years ago.

We still have the same streets, un-tarred roads, footpaths, and farms. He will find it convenient to eat because we still eat the same food. It just occurred to me that the way, for example, beans was prepared when I was a boy is still the same way it is prepared today. That says a whole lot about the African mind, we enjoy status quo. This applies to all the other African cuisines.

It simply means that our creativity, to a large extent, has been suspended. The truth is that there are so many things around that we could combine and mix together. We need to experiment. Ours is a society that does not experiment and very slow to change. A man by the name George Washington Carver in the United States carried out experiments on groundnuts and came out with over 90 different uses of groundnut for food.

 

The way groundnut was either cooked or roasted and sold by the roadside forty years ago, is still the same way it is being sold now, maybe the only difference is that it is now being bottled. That seems to be the only creative idea that we have added to the preparation and sales of groundnut in the past several years. The tools we have been using are still the same.

When you fly over cities in the developed world, especially over farms, it is beautiful scenery when you look down. The rows of farms are clearly marked out. When you fly over Nigeria and your plane is close to landing, take a look at the farms. They are haggard and out of order because we still use crude implements. That is why I said that if a farmer who died a hundred years ago wakes, he will go back to his farm and just continue where he stopped.

We are still using the same old crude implements in this age of mechanized farming. The way maize had been either cooked or roasted is the same way it is still being done today. Same pot, coal, and wire-mesh and I wonder shouldn’t somebody develop something that will deliver these people who roast corn from the smoke they inhale? The average Nigerian mind must become creative.

It has been established worldwide that wealth creation only begins with the mind. Countries that depend and build their economy on their natural resources are amongst the poorest countries in the world with just a few exceptions. This is where we are today in Nigeria. We have depended so much on our oil that we need to sound the alarm, this country needs to change.

There was a time that the richest people in the world were the sultans of oil-rich emirates like the Sultan of Brunei. Those days are gone and they are gone forever. The wealthiest people in the world now are people who use their minds. The wealthiest people in the world presently are those who trade in information products like Bill Gates and the rest of them.

If we want to create wealth in this country, we have to create new products and services. Really, it is exciting to be in this country at this time because this place is still green and raw. If you have to compete in the developed world you would have to really think, and come up with things that will impress people because they have created so much already.

You would also have to do heavy marketing and advertising to bring the product to people’s attention because they already have so many options to choose from. Our marketing and advertising here, to a large extent, are still raw. Before now, being in business simply meant running after government contracts but those days too are over.

Our government has suddenly realized that as a country we will remain poor as long as we keep spending more than we earn. So our economy has to focus on earning, creating, and producing rather than spending. There are several businesses that depend on only one client for survival and that is dangerous because things are changing rapidly around here.

Running after contracts would no more be the definition of business in Nigeria. The business now will require creating products and services. Beating your competition and coming out with better products and better services and ideas would be the new way of business in Nigeria.

So we have to train our minds to find ways to improve people’s quality of life and add value to people. Let it begin with you. Take your life, your career, and your business to a new level. Read books. Develop new ideas. Do things in a new way.

Nigeria will succeed!