DESIGNS AND BUGS: NIGERIA AS IT IS
Nigeria is designed to fail, contends Joshua J. Omojuwa
I was in the vehicle with a mobile police officer when we saw other road users breaking the law. What drew my interest was the presence of police officers embedded in the impending chaos. I asked the officer, ‘why your men dey watch as these people dey try cause chaos?’ His response is more memorable to me than everything else from that recollection. He said, ‘wetin you wan make dem do sir? If dem arrest one of them, him go call one oga, na that oga go come even tell you say make you assist the driver, then dem go order you to escort am go where im dey go’. Whilst this may come as a shock to anyone hearing about Nigeria and one of its norms for the first time, this would read like just another day in the seeming exceptionalism that is our country.
When Nigeria works, you suspect a bug but when it doesn’t work, you move on knowing that that is the norm. You take it like that, they say.
Those who are frustrated by this are yet to come to the realisation necessary to survive the system; this system was designed to be this way. If you leave your house expecting it to work differently, you have set your expectations against the norm, which means that you have set yourself up to be disappointed. There is a reason we are quick to recognise people and platforms that defy this norm. When you experience customer service as it should be, you leave singing the praises of the establishment. Because your baseline expectation for ‘customer service’ is to not expect any such thing.
In systems designed to work, most people express shock when due to some bug or the other, the system fails to work. In systems designed not to work, most people express shock when due to some bug or the other, the system works. Our experiences are replete with proofs of the latter. There is hardly a day that passes these days without someone reporting that money has been moved from their account to another account without their permission. They got hacked and had their money stolen. Being hacked and having one’s money stolen isn’t exceptional to Nigeria. What is exceptional is that the hackers brazenly move the money to a known account with a known Bank Verification Number (BVN). The banks involved in the transaction – especially the receiving bank – could easily place a restriction on the receiving account whilst making a report to the police. This is exactly what does not happen.
Instead, the victim must find a lawyer, then obtain a court order to have the bank block the crime beneficiary account. This is a system designed to not only protect the criminal; it is a system with a built-in incentive for such crimes. Most of the victims are poor retirees whose every income is tied to making a basic living. When their money gets stolen, no matter how desperate they are for justice, they cannot afford the money for a lawyer who would help them secure a judgment to have the suspect’s account closed.
In this case, the system was designed for the criminal to thrive and for the victim to move on. The victim, the criminal and the prospective criminal all know this.
Elsewhere, such a designed-to-be-suspicious transaction would automatically trigger the closure of both accounts. The bank then works with the police whilst assurances are made to the victim that their money would be recovered. As part of the recovery, their old card is automatically blocked, and a new bank card handed to them – none of which requires the payment of any maintenance fee. No charges are made on your every transaction either. These banks make money from banking and powering the economy, not from robbing their customers. Another legal design theft in some countries.
Since 1999, no Nigerian lawmaker has ever been recalled. This is a design that protects the political class from the people. The closest a lawmaker got to being recalled, it took the vested interest of a powerful governor. Even at that, back in 2018, it failed. Does the law provide room for a recall? Yes. Is that law designed to work? Yes. It was designed to work for the elected, not for the people who elected them. And who’s got the power to change the law? The people via their lawmakers. But who’s got the power to ensure nothing changes? The lawmaker. None of this confusing. If you are confused, that is the point of the design.
Why in so many decades, police officers continue to mount roadblocks, whilst obtaining money from road users by force and nothing has changed? It was designed to be so. It is why it is normal to you but the day you experience that very thing with a visiting foreigner, it is shocking to them.
In design thinking, the people are the priority. The essence of the design is to make life as easy and comfortable for the people as much as possible. Situations may arise at times when a bug upsets the design. They are soon addressed, and the system is fixed. As there are designs that are built to work, there are also designs that are built to fail. When a system built to work fails, it is often the result of a bug. When a system built to fail works, it is often the result of a bug.
Nigeria as it is, in most cases, was not designed to work. It is why whenever something works as it ought to, we rave about them. Those Nigerians who defy this prevailing design deserve praise. They are the bugs.
To change Nigeria, you’d need a different design. Anyone who thinks that that requires just one person to happen should not be blamed. They are true to type to the current design. When the majority wake up to the essence of our collective responsibility, you can start to tinker with your expectations.
Omojuwa is
Chief Strategist, Alpha Reach/Author, Digital Wealth Book
