I thought about posting this to my football blog, but I decided this wasn't a football issue per se.
In the aftermath of Spain's victory in the 2012 European Championships, an acquaintance of mine suggested we send Nigerian football coaches to be trained in Spain, and send young Nigerian players to be groomed and polished in Spanish club academies. Spain are World Champions, back-to-back European Champions, European Under-21 Champions and European Under-19 Champions.
I respect countries that have strong footballing institutions/industries, and have long believed that the route to Nigeria's emergence as a World (not just African) football power lay in systemic reform and improvement from the bottom of the football pyramid to the very top -- as opposed to randomly hiring and firing an endless steam of national team coaches.
With that said, while dancing is dancing ... is dancy, you wouldn't go to the Russian Bolshoi Theatre to learn how to
teach Atilogwu to others, nor would you go there seeking their instruction on how to perfect your Atilogwu dancing skills, would you?
Let me put is another way.
At the dawn of the Fourth Republic, I saw a news
report about members of the Nigerian National Assembly on an official
visit to the British Parliament. They went on and on to the journalist about how they had come to learn parliamentary practice from the
world's oldest parliament.
I had a question then, and still have the same question now: Do you really need to fly to Europe to learn how to take turns speaking in a group on an issue before voting on the issue you have been discussing?
I had a question then, and still have the same question now: Do you really need to fly to Europe to learn how to take turns speaking in a group on an issue before voting on the issue you have been discussing?
In theory, if not in practice, this blog is read (or could be read) by people from around the world, people whose only impression of "Africa" comes from the "international media". In other words, people who don't know much about Nigeria or Africa. So let me give you a little background on why this bothered me.
I grew up in a
suburb of one of Nigeria's major cities. In Nigeria, a "suburb" is more often than not a place that was historically a self-standing, self-governing (i.e. "independent") village or town in the precolonial times that happened to be geographically situated near a place that experienced rapid modernization and urban growth in the post-colonial period. In one sense, it is a city neighbourhood, but in another sense it retains its own "nationhood" (I don't know how else to put it) complete with all the structures of African traditional government.
Traditional government means different things in different parts of Nigeria. Some parts of Nigeria have been monarchies for thousands of years. Other parts of Nigeria practiced what has come to be known as the "village republic" model of government.
I happened to grow up in a "suburb" that was a village republic.
Every once in a while, the men of the community ("indigenes" only) would gather at the village hall. There would be animated debate of whatever was the issue at stake, after which there would be a decision. The men of this community did not need to go to Britain to learn parliamentary procedure. Quite a large number of Nigerian towns and villages were convening "parliaments" long before the British people created the supposed "Mother of all Parliaments".
Every once in a while, the men of the community ("indigenes" only) would gather at the village hall. There would be animated debate of whatever was the issue at stake, after which there would be a decision. The men of this community did not need to go to Britain to learn parliamentary procedure. Quite a large number of Nigerian towns and villages were convening "parliaments" long before the British people created the supposed "Mother of all Parliaments".
Don't get the wrong idea.This isn't about nationalism, or about trying to prove who did it first.
I am saying there a tendency, in the Nigerian elite, the African elite and the "global" elite, to portray the African continent and the people of Africa as being incapable of doing anything, and more specifically as being incapable of doing anything right. There are a lot of people invested in this idea, a lot of people who derive wealth and exercise power and influence, explained away as being necessary because without them Africans would not be able to tie their shoe laces, much less anything else.
Yes, I know, to those of you who know of Africa only through the "international" media, it might seem like we just let things happen to us and don't proactively advance our wellbeing, but this is a false image.
We are compelled to do things for ourselves that people in the rest of the world get spoonfed. You rely on a utility company for electricity; we have to generate our own electricity. You rely on a utility company to pipe water to your homes; we have to pump and pipe our own water. You rely on your governments to build roads; we pay and contract with workers to carve out roads to our homes, and we pay to cover the roads with gravel or sand. You rely on the police for your security; we have to provide our own security, high walls, vicious dogs ... and the ubiquitous, if unregistered, firearms. And we sure as heck provide our own welfare or dole or health "insurance", not to mention pay from our pockets to take care of our elderly in their retirement.
The secondary school in my ancestral home town was built because the people gathered together in a village parliament and agreed to impose mandatory contributions from everyone in the village to pay to build the school. In effect, it was no different than a "government" imposing "taxes" on the people, monitoring the collection of those taxes, and then efficiently carrying out what it was the "voters" want.
The problem is there is, and has been since the colonial days, a disconnection between the "Africa" represented by the governments and other official institutions, and the "Africa" of entrepreneurial people who have to be very creative and innovation to survive because they don't have the option of marching down the streets demanding the government allow them to retire on full government-paid pensions at the age of 42.
Yes, I know, to those of you who know of Africa only through the "international" media, it might seem like we just let things happen to us and don't proactively advance our wellbeing, but this is a false image.
We are compelled to do things for ourselves that people in the rest of the world get spoonfed. You rely on a utility company for electricity; we have to generate our own electricity. You rely on a utility company to pipe water to your homes; we have to pump and pipe our own water. You rely on your governments to build roads; we pay and contract with workers to carve out roads to our homes, and we pay to cover the roads with gravel or sand. You rely on the police for your security; we have to provide our own security, high walls, vicious dogs ... and the ubiquitous, if unregistered, firearms. And we sure as heck provide our own welfare or dole or health "insurance", not to mention pay from our pockets to take care of our elderly in their retirement.
The secondary school in my ancestral home town was built because the people gathered together in a village parliament and agreed to impose mandatory contributions from everyone in the village to pay to build the school. In effect, it was no different than a "government" imposing "taxes" on the people, monitoring the collection of those taxes, and then efficiently carrying out what it was the "voters" want.
The problem is there is, and has been since the colonial days, a disconnection between the "Africa" represented by the governments and other official institutions, and the "Africa" of entrepreneurial people who have to be very creative and innovation to survive because they don't have the option of marching down the streets demanding the government allow them to retire on full government-paid pensions at the age of 42.
But there is only so much you can do at the subsistence or "micro" level. The problem with Africa is the "macro" level of politics and economics is controlled by Official Africa, and Official Africa has a different set of risks, motivations and interests. It is possible to build an Africa free from endemic starvation, but it doesn't happen because no matter how severe a hunger crisis may be, Official Africa never starves, and as such is not particularly motivated by the fear of starvation. There is more to be said about this (including the fact that a population that can independently feed itself without need to rely on centrally distributed food relief is a population even less under the control of Official Africa than it already is), but I would be digressing into a separate, lengthy discourse.
As Nigerians/Africans, we have come to realize that there are things we are not going to be allowed to do. We have come to realize that force will be used against us if we attempt to do those things. Nigeria has swung like a pendulum between military-led administrations and civilian-led administrations; under the former, the threat of force keeps us quiet, and under the latter ubiquitous violence tends to spread across the country, frightening people into avoiding politics.
But don't ever allow yourself to think that the dysfunction of the people in power means that we the people are incapable of function. It is the weird thing about Nigeria and indeed about Africa. Indeed,
"international" journalists have travelled to "lawless" and "ungoverned"
Somalia and been surprised to find a financial industry that is in some ways
more sophisticated than what you might find in certain "lawful" and
"governed" African countries.
It makes me angry. For example, we Nigerians complain about our maintenance culture. We despair that we build fantastic football stadia, oil refineries, power plants, roads and other infrastructure only to leave them to rot into disrepair and dysfunction. But you know what? We know we are supposed to maintain these things. And we have the expertise necessary to do so. Nothing in the world stops us from doing it. But somehow it doesn't get done.
In every instance we know what to do and we know how to do it. We just don't do it because the system is built around it not being done. For the system to "work" as it does, for example, the police has to be non-functional. The excuse given for the dysfunction is to continue to repeat that there is no "administrative capacity", in other words that we are not able to run a decent police force even if we tried (never mind that they are deliberately not trying). A corollary of this is we are supposed to seek foreign assistance to learn how to tie our shoe laces.
In every instance we know what to do and we know how to do it. We just don't do it because the system is built around it not being done. For the system to "work" as it does, for example, the police has to be non-functional. The excuse given for the dysfunction is to continue to repeat that there is no "administrative capacity", in other words that we are not able to run a decent police force even if we tried (never mind that they are deliberately not trying). A corollary of this is we are supposed to seek foreign assistance to learn how to tie our shoe laces.
It is aggravating. There is a vast society of capable, intelligent, entrepreneurial people that is ruled
(not governed) by people whose first response to any situation is to
act like they don't know anything and can't do anything unless led by
the hand by a foreigner.
They have handed sovereign control of economic policy to multilateral institutions and "development partners", and wring their hands as we continue to operate just below basic survival rather than move towards our maximum production possibilities. They watch on the sidelines while non-governmental organizations provide insufficient health care and education by consuming resources that could otherwise have created functional and sufficient healthcare and education institutions.
They talk to themselves, and leave we the people out of the conversation, on the assumption that we the people are not capable of understanding their high-level discussions ... discussions that produce an endless stream of bad policy.
Those National Assembly members who wasted scarce public funds to fly to Britain to supposedly learn how to be parliamentarians, came back home and delivered to us a National Assembly that was and remains a dysfunctional institution known only for collecting bribes and passing legislation to raise the salaries and benefits of its members. On the other hand, those men of the community where I grew up, men who had never stepped foot outside Nigeria, much less gone to Westminster, but were still able to come to functional decisions about issues affecting the village through "parliamentary" debate followed by a decision binding on everyone -- those men are allowed no input in the political process. Their votes don't count at elections, their voice does not matter between elections.
They have handed sovereign control of economic policy to multilateral institutions and "development partners", and wring their hands as we continue to operate just below basic survival rather than move towards our maximum production possibilities. They watch on the sidelines while non-governmental organizations provide insufficient health care and education by consuming resources that could otherwise have created functional and sufficient healthcare and education institutions.
They talk to themselves, and leave we the people out of the conversation, on the assumption that we the people are not capable of understanding their high-level discussions ... discussions that produce an endless stream of bad policy.
Those National Assembly members who wasted scarce public funds to fly to Britain to supposedly learn how to be parliamentarians, came back home and delivered to us a National Assembly that was and remains a dysfunctional institution known only for collecting bribes and passing legislation to raise the salaries and benefits of its members. On the other hand, those men of the community where I grew up, men who had never stepped foot outside Nigeria, much less gone to Westminster, but were still able to come to functional decisions about issues affecting the village through "parliamentary" debate followed by a decision binding on everyone -- those men are allowed no input in the political process. Their votes don't count at elections, their voice does not matter between elections.
People like to use words like "ignorance" when discussing the sort of person who seeks first to abjure responsibility and transfer decision-making to supposedly expert foreigners who are paid outlandish fees and salaries for their supposed expertize. But it has nothing to do with education, or with a person's educational attainment. It is more an ideology, one shared by a section of the "educated" elite on our continent, and by the elite on two other continents.
From as far back as the colonial days, there was a tendency among certain (but not all) "educated" Africans to assume that they were now less like their fellow Africans and more like the colonials. Without digressing too far into that emotive side-topic, let me just say that this particular sub-fraction of the African population (i.e. those who felt less affinity with their fellow African and more with the colonials) happened to be over-represented in the post-colonial governments. This too is a topic on its own, but these are the sort of people who 50 years later will look you in the face and tell you they have to travel to Britain to learn how to be parliamentarians from the Mother Country, rather than allow the genuine democracy of the village republic and the checked-and-balanced authority of the monarch be the building block of an African-style democracy. Sure, our precolonial governments were not perfect, but neither were (or are) the governments of the countries we are told we must view as the epitome of perfection.
Look, football is not rocket science (though, having said that, Nigeria and Africa do have a good number of people with the education and experience -- often abroad -- to be rocket scientists).
From as far back as the colonial days, there was a tendency among certain (but not all) "educated" Africans to assume that they were now less like their fellow Africans and more like the colonials. Without digressing too far into that emotive side-topic, let me just say that this particular sub-fraction of the African population (i.e. those who felt less affinity with their fellow African and more with the colonials) happened to be over-represented in the post-colonial governments. This too is a topic on its own, but these are the sort of people who 50 years later will look you in the face and tell you they have to travel to Britain to learn how to be parliamentarians from the Mother Country, rather than allow the genuine democracy of the village republic and the checked-and-balanced authority of the monarch be the building block of an African-style democracy. Sure, our precolonial governments were not perfect, but neither were (or are) the governments of the countries we are told we must view as the epitome of perfection.
Look, football is not rocket science (though, having said that, Nigeria and Africa do have a good number of people with the education and experience -- often abroad -- to be rocket scientists).
Do our goalkeepers have to travel to Europe to be put in a training regimen to learn how to deal with crosses? Do you tall players have to fly to Europe to be put through heading drills to learn, through repetitive experience, how to properly head the ball?
Before they invented the various euphemisms of "sports science", the original innovators in the field of bringing athletes to peak performance were people with exactly the same academic qualifications that are quite abundant in Nigeria: biology, anatomy, physiology, smedicine, physical education, nutrition, etc. Heck, the tools and machinery used in "sports science" are jazzed up versions of tools that have been around for decades, albeit fine-tuned for purpose by people who realized that the initial versions were not giving them the data or functionality they needed.
But what drives this innovation is actually very simple. You don't have to be a genius to know that the younger-version Okocha couldn't control his powerful shots, nor do you have to be a genius to start thinking, "well, how can I teach him how to control his shots?" You make him take shots over and over again, watch what he is doing, see what happens when his shots "work" and what happens when they doesn't, and use the lessons to fine-tune his practice sessions and to plan the practice sessions of other players with his exact problem. Somewhere along the way, you will come to the conclusion that you need to fine-tune a piece of technology, and because you know exactly what you want, you are able to tell the technician or engineer or whatever exactly what "tweaks" you need. I was embarrassed when Rabiu Ibrahim arrived in Europe and his first club decided he was far too one-legged and put him on a special training regimen to strengthen his right leg. Seriously, we can't do that in Nigeria?
But we will never get to where we need to go if the people in charge continue their habitual first reaction of a shoulder shrug, followed by handing everything over to the nearest foreigner.
I know some of you are thinking, "you are exaggerating. one can always gain additional knowledge by travelling to countries who have perfected it." But this is a deceptive lie. Nigerians and Africans have been travelling to foreign countries to learn from them for more than a century. If you count the "Nigerians" who travelled on pilgrimages to the Arabian peninsula via Egypt and Iraq, for many centuries.
As of 2012, Nigeria and Africa possess sufficient numbers with sufficient knowledge, but we either don't use them or we give them away to other countries. We give away our football players. But much more self-damagingly, we give away our doctors and nurses. We don't have enough doctors and nurses, and yet we do nothing to hold on to the ones we have. And then we start with the resource-hungry non-governmental organizations that could never properly replace a functional healthcare system.
I am tired of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment