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ANCIENT: The locally fabricated
pressing iron which was once widely used in southwest Nigeria (and in other parts of Africa to date) was a
vital part of traditional tailors’ tool of trade; it was powered by heat from
burning charcoal lit inside the belly. Image credit - Michael Kyewalabye
(Uganda) Arsenal fans Group-Facebook
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By Kenneth Nwachinemelu David-Okafor
Please let me pointedly ask if you are following the ongoing serialization of the blog post "How to Become a Successful Inventor in Nigeria"?
I hope you are following this series as it
represents one of the most interesting treatise on NAIJAGRAPHITTI BLOG thus far.
IF NOT, you may join in right after reading
this with the next links (CLICK HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE).
In this present post I thought I should take
a break and share telling stories, to give my take on the wide spread recurrence
of dearth of inventive thinking among Nigerians, from a perspective formed from
lived experiences and bitsy incidences of life which many Nigerians and other
Africans can relate to. Thus I am going to attempt to illustrate the story of
Nigeria’s underrepresentation on the Hall of Fame of inventive nations with anecdotal
vignettes from my childhood to adulthood and substantiate how I came to my own
conclusions long before I could back up my opinion with hard facts. The stories,
by their morals and by inference, capture cause and effect as they paint vivid
pictures as clearly as data.
In the absence of any systematic study, we
are at liberty to use anecdotal evidence; Mpofu et al. (2006) noted "anecdotal reports are an important source
of information on sociocultural practices that are under researched, or from settings
that are underrepresented in the literature" (Mpofu et al., 2006 p.477).
The first vignette I would share out of four
is drawn the period covering ten to fifteen years as I grew up in southwest
Nigeria, around (at one point) and inside (at another point) a university community.
Growing up as the child of a full-time civil
servant and later a part-time large-scale subsistence farmer father, I witnessed
firsthand the arduous nature of rain-fed subsistence farming bereft of an iota
of mechanization: little changed since those days decades ago.
My father was not alone. There was a whole
scale community of full-time civil servants who regularly moonlighted as part-time
farmers among which number could be counted lecturers from the university. The
goal of these men was fairly straightforward: to augment low wages by producing
certain cash crops and thus reducing food bills. Many of them typically cropped
yam, cassava, cocoyam, maize, vegetable (especially fluted pumpkin), peppers,
tomatoes and okra. The average farm size was just under a hectare but was
usually in broken up holdings, leased from the village land-owners (we would
later learn that the land did indeed belong to the university from the original
gifting from government but the villagers took advantage of their ancestral
claims). They produced more than their families could consume, sold off the
excess and reserved seed stock for the next farming season from their own yield
(once there was not plant pest/disease outbreak). These men, their families and,
occasionally, paid farm hands worked laboriously from dawn to dusk with sparse
breaks for refreshments and banter in between. My father specialized in yam,
cassava, and maize (he kept livestock separately as well); combined, he farmed one
of the biggest land holdings.
Naturally, my mind wondered why none of these
civil servants moonlighting as farmers did not attempt to figure out better and
faster ways to do some of the more arduous tasks farming the land after long
hours behind the desk and on weekends?
Do not get me wrong, I acknowledged these
were conscientious breadwinners who took what role they played as family and dependents’
providers seriously. I thought highly of men, they, like my father, labored that
I should have a better life. Of course, they consulted fellow part-time farmers
should they have a knotty issue to tackle. At any given opportunity of a break,
you could see them gathered, swapping tips on farming, family affairs, political
developments, wicked bosses who denied them due promotions and even share coarse
jokes. Usually, they discussed, huddled in groups by tree shades or whatever
sun-cover they could find, dissecting topics as wide ranging as handling seedlings,
fertilizer application, where to source the best crop seedlings, crop rotation
options, weed control methods and the tactic of hiring farm hands at the cheapest
rates. But in terms of the mechanics of saving time, energy, resources, through
greater efficiency and less stress than their forebears did in order to exponentially
improving yield per acre, they discussed nothing.
As I preferred not to toil this hard to make
a livelihood, I got thinking: was this soul-gutting manual labour the only way
to do this? From my reflections as a teenager I had learned enough even from
snatches of ideas I saw in the movies to figure out that clever improvisations
were close relatives to inventions. Improvisations on farms, I truly imagined, certainly
could help expedite bush clearing/ground preparation, save time and, generally,
multiply crop yield in the long run. I wondered at the conundrum and kept my
eyes peeled to observe if I would discover even one person who failed to
conform to the same mold; I did not find one. Gradually I was gripped by an ominous
thought: perhaps it did not really cross
their minds to figure out alternatives.
On the other hand I observed something else:
whenever they came across someone with a clever idea or contraption which they wished
to copy at no cost, they could take to it. Other than this happenstance, they
seemed to accept the back-breaking work as their lot in life and they squared
their shoulders and bore the burden with equanimity!
The real irony was that these men all worked
the land around the very first university in Nigeria, a great store of
knowledge with a reputed Department of Agriculture & Extension Services,
where some world renowned scholars came to research and produce knowledge in
agricultural science and agricultural economics. As a matter of fact the
institution’s history is steeped in agriculture pedigree, for the first campus
was located on an agricultural research station outpost.
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ANCIENT: Men inside
canoe at 2009 Argungu Fishing Festival Image credit: Irene Becker
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The second vignette comes from when my
sartorial tastes began to bud and the flower of fashion consciousness was about
to break into full bloom.
For reasons of my development of interest in
designing my own clothes and other apparels, one of the sets of people I paid
attention to closely, to observe how they plied their trade as they served me
were tailors. As any young man that wished to dress in a dapper fashion, you
minded who made your clothing. Designer clothing were not in those days rather
the good old tailor – man or woman – was the go-to person, to realize my
creative imagination in clothes.
Here I wish to review the tailor and the
tailor’s ensemble; there was the inevitable Singer sewing machine, the
measuring tape, sowing threads, the marking chalk and the rugged pressing iron
(pictured). Every single item is imported but the locally fabricated pressing
iron which the tailor uses to keep the shape of clothes before and after they
are sown.
The use and the operations of these kind of
irons has caused many tailors and their clients untold grief. You see accidents
happen while using these locally-made irons. Sparks from the coal burning
inside the belly of the iron can fall on new clothes and singe them irreparably
leaving the tailor distraught and the clothe owner incensed (and sometimes
inconsolable).
Yet for all the risks, no tailor or customer
has thought it fit to subject the locally-made iron to operational improvements
for optimal performance.
The third vignette is from my work in
Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
I have already written about the humble
hand-pull canoe (dugout canoe) which is literally the "work horse" in
several riverine and coastal communities in the length and breadth of Nigeria’s
regions in several other blog posts in the past.
I have an abiding fascination with the
hand-pull canoe (dugout canoe). The manner in which it has become frozen and
without product modifications/enhancements for thousands of years is one of the
most significant proofs that Nigerians are generally invention-risk averse.
The canoe is an important cultural symbol,
occupational tool and mode of transportation from rural to peri-urban communities
in Nigeria especially those which are coastal in nature or that are close to
the waterways. Out of the 36 states which make up the Nigerian federation,
whether in the north, south, east or west, there are only a handful in which
the canoe for transportation, for artisanal fishing, for haulage, for
socializing, and for sport / recreation in one part or the other. In some
places school children cannot even go to school without the canoe which is the
only mode of transport available so they call the canoe, "the water
bus". In essence, the canoe is vital to the economy, livelihoods and way
of life of certain Nigerian communities and thus a permanent fixture and
feature in some Nigerian communities.
A Nigerian canoe is traditionally a
lightweight boat, made as a dugout from a hollowed tree trunk, propelled by one
or more seated or standing paddler using a single-blade or double-blade paddle
or one long pole for punting the canoe. In the photograph above the paddlers
are using both the long pole and the single blade paddle.
Dugouts are paddled across deep lakes and
rivers or punted through channels in swamps or in shallow areas. Many folks
have the same combination for movements in both shallow and deeper waters.
The canoe has a long history in Nigeria.
The history is even much longer than
millions of Nigerians realize when they learn that one of the oldest dugout
canoes was "invented" in the Komadugu Komadugu Gana River Basin geographically
close to the Lake Chad Basin, in the northeast of a future Nigeria, 8500 years
ago then you become even more askance.
A dugout canoe (now called the Dufuna canoe)
was discovered by a Fulani herdsman in the month of May, 1987, near the village
of Dufuna in Fune Local Government Area of Yobe State, not far from the Komadugu
Gana River.
Various sources have documented the history
and timeline of this huge discovery. Understandably, this was one of the
most significant archeological finds ever in Nigeria. Archaeologists suddenly
gathered irrefutable proof that some form of advanced civilization existed in
the Lake Chad Basin around 6000 BC.
The news frenzy and sheer excitement all
over the world which followed the discovery was inevitable. The laboratory
results which the crop of experts which were assembled to authenticate the
finding could not help but redefine the pre-history of African water transport,
ranking the Dufuna canoe as the world's third oldest known dugout. The other
ones older than it are the dugouts from Pesse, Netherlands and Noyen-sur-Seine,
France. As a matter of fact the emanating evidence of an 8000-year-old
'tradition' of boat building in Africa appeared to set aside the assumption
that maritime transport developed much later in Africa than in Europe.
As some of the protagonists of the time
opined, one of the great benefits of the discovery was that it helped
archaeologists draw a relationship between what was happening in Nigeria and
elsewhere in the world during that period. Indications were that while
Nigerians were making canoes in Dufuna village in 6000 BC, the people of Catol
Huyuk in Turkey were making pottery, textiles, etc, like people of Mesopotamia
(in present day Iraq) were forming urban communities and the Chinese were
making painted pottery in the Yang Shao region.
Nevertheless, the canoe is one high utility
piece of equipment yearning for improvements and modifications for optimal
performance.
On any good day, on account of speed and
efficiency, the canoe is laborious, difficult-to-handle and much slower than
the motorized boat; on account of reliability and ruggedness, the canoe is not
entirely dependable and cannot be handled well under inclement weather
conditions; on the account of safety and other related parameters, the canoe is
unsafe even dangerous. Canoe are prone to accidents on the water-ways. Several
report of accidental drownings are recorded due to capsized canoes. Some
accidents are even unreported since all victims perished and there were not
eye-witnesses.
Why has the canoe remained unaltered for
eons? Why was the Dufuna canoe unimproved?
Why has the canoe left frozen in the
rudimentary stage in 'inventive' time? Why would an object that has effect in
many aspects of the lives of large sections of people economically, socially,
and culturally not be considered for modification? Why would an object of
humongous value remain at the very rudimentary levels of development?
Was it that the problem which necessitated
the invention of the canoe was solved and disappeared rendering the invention
unnecessary? Or was it a case of creativity stasis, an invention arrest
development, where creative imagination sparked and flamed out in one brief
span?
There are more questions. Was the Dufuna
canoe the result of one canoe carver (read "inventor") or several
collaborators? When this man (or men) completed building, did they transfer the
skill? If yes, what became of that know-how? If no, why not?
Whatever the answer you come up with,
whatever the plausible explanation, the fact of lack of continuity of
originality would not be lost on any observer. The people who usually argue
that colonial adventurers interfered with the natural development curve of the
colonized people would not be able to rationalize this query. Because the Dufuna
canoe was invented thousands of years before the first intruders arrived. The
whole affair does not shed flattering light on whatever was the system of
skills transfer in the era.
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MODERN BUT UNABLE TO POWER
INDUSTRIALIZATION: President Goodluck Jonathan (middle) joggling the "Socket
Football to Electricity" (invention) presented to him by the Uncharted
Play Group during their visit to the Presidential Villa in Abuja in August 2013.
Within the photo frame are: Vice-President Namadi Sambo (2nd left); U.S.-based
Nigerian inventor, Miss Jessica Mathews (3rd right), her father, Dr Mathews
Idoni (L), and Minister of Works, Mr Mike Onolonemen (R). Image credit/Photo: News
Agency of Nigeria
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The fourth and final vignette comes my
experiences with electric power in Nigeria.
If there was something which truly united
Nigerians across all known sociologic and developmental parameters, even more
than soccer, it was the incessant poor supply of electric power. (Now I am
writing this blog in mid-afternoon with my laptop powered by a petrol engine
power generator; no electricity since yesterday).
If there was ever a cause which gets the
goat of the average Nigerian it was incessant power failure. Nigerian leaders
are stumped completely when it comes to Nigeria’s poor electricity supplies.
Some finger conspiratorial "electric power sector cabal/saboteurs/generator
importers intent on malfeasance" and others finger "corruption"
while the pious intone the problem is "spiritual". Everybody holds
their own viewpoints religiously and yet Nigeria still has electric power
problems.
When three successive administrations within
16 years, from 1999 to 2015, from the Obasanjo to the Jonathan administration,
tried to partially plug the electric power supplies shortfall with the vaunted
NIPP, almost nothing changed. The primary reason for the impotence of the NIPP?
Lack of gas. Why lack of gas in an oil and gas-rich country? The primary reason
is due to a lack of investments in the downstream sector by the oil majors with
the financial pull/muscle to execute such capital-intensive ventures.
I will quote directly
from the work titled "The
Opportunity Costs of Militancy in the Niger Delta, An Exposé" (CLICK HERE) which makes allusion to partly explain the core reason for the lack of
investments in the downstream sector by the oil majors and because of the
sensitivity of his subject matter the author signed off his work published on
the Nairaland Forum website on
Monday, May 30, 2016 only with his initials, LRNZH.
He wrote,
I was privileged to have a conversation with
a high level executive in one of the international oil majors. My question to
him is why we do not have the majors investing in massive industrial complexes
to be located in the Niger Delta that will provide gas or power to
manufacturers in places like Aba, refine crude oil and supply petrochemicals.
Such projects will have a huge market in the West African sub-region. Shell has
one in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, ExxonMobil has a few in Singapore and in the
US, Marathon also has one in in Los Angeles, USA to mention a few.
His response is that his company, like other
companies recognized that potential in Nigeria and did some feasibility
studies. The risk to such project is too huge considering that it requires
several billion dollars investment and a long time to bring to fruition. He
blatantly opined that the market is not the issue. In fact, it will change the
Niger Delta and West Africa. Gas flaring will become history with such
complexes.
It is apparent that the lack of peace in the
Niger Delta due to militancy will never allow such projects to be considered.
The business case is just not there. Ironically, even the fuel stations that
are owned by the majors like Total and Mobil are being considered for
divestment by their owners.
Of course, the corruption really rankled the
most.
I am reminded of Nnamdi Awa-Kalu in his work
"The Energy and the Elegy: The
Tragedy of Nigerian Innovation" (CLICK HERE) where he wrote,
Of course, let us not forget that some
innovation flows from the restiveness that the lack of electric power causes.
419. In Western depictions of Nigeria, the fraudster caricature dominates the
larger narrative of a corrupt state held back by its own greed. Some Nigerians
have found the will to profit from the innocent and from the state, through
internet-based scams and every other form of cheating. Even when this
corruption is not online, it is ever present. All signs point to a ruling class
that is happier to get fat on the public purse than to spend on development.
The reasoning seems to be that there is no harm in budgeting inflated amounts
on infrastructure while spending a fraction of that on actual projects. So,
vast millions are skimmed off and put in offshore accounts while the work is
eventually carried out with money that is not enough, if it is done at all. In
that small but crucial way, Made in Nigeria has emerged as a byword for shoddy
design and poor execution, to be avoided wherever possible. Which makes it all
the more ironic that the newly-elected government swept into power using the
traditional broom, that most backward of implements, as its symbol of change.
The other day, Bill Gates of MicroSoft and
the Belinda and Bill Gates Foundation gave an interview in which he opined that
Africa has less electricity than 30 years ago. Many Nigerians think he is not
off the mark.
Poor power supplies stared hard at the
intrepid Nigerian spirit and won.
Little wonder the lofty dreams of rapid
industrialization seem grandiose and far-fetched.
Why are Nigerians not innovating their way
out of darkness and inventing off-the-grid solutions to the parlous state of
electric power supply in Nigeria?
Now everybody knows there are recurring
problems with the system, yet nobody invests the commonsense required to tackle
the problems resolutely.
What is even more baffling is the attitude
of the higher institutions of education, particularly those concerned with
science and technology, of which Nigeria has a few, which behaved aloof and
disinterested in the electric power conundrum. As a matter of fact, the reason
for the perennial closure of universities in Nigeria has been the lack of
electric power supplies on campus.
Of course, there are people we could readily
finger who people look up to ¾ like
the scientists, the PhD holders, the engineers and others in their cadre who
otherwise ought to cater to societal challenges by virtue of knowledge they
possess.
On September 30, 2008, the VANGUARD
newspaper wrote,
Mrs. Grace Ekpwihre, Minister of State for
Technology, recently pronounced one of the enduring truths we have evaded
telling ourselves when she announced that doctorate degree holders have failed
Nigeria.
Indeed, if one were to take an inventory of a
modern home or office and itemize all the things that have made life worth
living for mankind — computers, telephone
sets, television, internet, automobiles, aircraft, motor boats and the
ubiquitous generator sets, to mention a few — one
would be appalled by the fact that Nigeria's vast number of advanced degree
holders have made next to no contribution to these inventions. Even those who
have studied abroad and stayed there have made negligible contributions to
mankind.
Many people may not remember Chief (Mrs) Grace Ekpwihre’s tenure as the Honourable Minister for Federal Ministry of Science and Technology but her strong albeit apt critique of doctorate degree holders having failed Nigeria are now immortalized by VAGUARD Editorial titled "Nigeria: Encouraging Inventions".
When I took all the above stories together,
over time, the overarching inference came to me as clear as glass: when people
live long enough with certain handicaps they deign to tolerate and cope with then
the handicaps disappear by merging with their way of living as a sort of coping
strategy and thus become just part of what makes life what/how it is; they
learn to live with handicaps, eventually.
They finally never make any effort and
gradually get stuck in the rut; eviscerated but helpless; challenged but
appallingly risk averse.
The handicaps in Nigeria are so
overwhelming, so rampant and so intractable that the will to dare for change is
gradually ground down, lack of trying thus becomes culture.
These, in the main, I consider the key reasons why there are so few
inventors in Nigeria --- under-exercised
imagination/poor use of the imagination, lack of inventive thinking, thinking outside a problem solving mode, neglect of knowledge, misapplication of
resources and being innately risk averse.
Now I am sure you have your own stories with their own inferences; I do not mind swapping stories, do you?
