A NATION OF CONTRADICTIONS

Joshua J. Omojuwa argues that Nigeria’s problem is not corruption but collective lack of ambition

One of the most shocking things I heard this summer never left my mind. It caught my attention for many reasons, not least because the subject matter is one of those things I have repeatedly written about for years. It also registered because the speaker had said something contrasting just a day before. The speaker is a friend since my secondary school days. After we graduated secondary school, he left for the United States as a teenager and is today an accomplished man in every sense of the word, with several patents and several millions of dollars to his name.

The day before, he had said, “Nigeria put something in me I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else. For that I am grateful for Nigeria. I’ve got a mental edge over others here because I grew up in Nigeria”. Whilst I was not expecting this, I didn’t think it was anything unusual. I understood what he meant even though he had now spent about half of his life abroad and the bit he spent in Nigeria were of the struggles and survival of a child in primary and secondary school.  

We got talking the day after he gave Nigeria those flowers. Note that he is hardly in Nigeria since leaving. When he returned to the country for my wedding, he left immediately after. I knew he was not happy with the country and was not inclined to visiting except when necessary. When he volunteered the reason, of all the reasons in the world, I never saw his coming. “My greatest challenge with coming to Nigeria is the airport!”. I wanted to hear that said again because whilst I totally understood the challenges of traveling through Nigerian airports, especially the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, I never saw the possibility of that airport experience being the No. One reason a Nigerian would avoid visiting the country.

This is the contradiction of our country. In one breath inspiring awe and respect for the lessons it helped to instil, and in the same breath serving disgust on account of not being able to deliver a respectable traveling experience at its airports.

If you have been following the Chinese seizure of Nigerian assets abroad, you’d be forgiven to wonder that the process of advancing an agreement between the government and an international partner must be rocket science. The Ogun-Chinese incident was avoidable. Nigeria already has a best-practice model on this front. The Lagos Free Zone partnership comprising the federal government, the Lagos State Government and Tolaram offers a lesson that should have been deployed elsewhere, especially serving as a model for the Ogun State Government. Whilst the Lagos Free Zone is now the go-to location for businesses and manufacturers, we are now paying the cost of what we missed out in the Ogun State Government engagement with its Chinese partners. One country, same contradictory ends.

Nigeria’s greatest challenge is not corruption, it is the abject lack of ambition. The inability of even the corrupt at heart to know that with a bigger pie, there is a lot more to gain. So, instead of building a bigger pie from what we’ve got, people instead feed on the seed itself. Because in their small unambitious minds, the seed is massive. When indeed, it’s just an opportunity to build more. It is why one government cannot advance an agreement already committed to by a previous one without looking to halt same for one personal reason or the other. If people were ambitious , they’d look to expand opportunities rather than be obsessed about what others got right or didn’t.

I assure you, when you think about it, our greatest challenge is the lack of ambition. The inability of the good to see more — they mean well but can’t see more, the inability of the thief to see more — everything is for sale, everything is to be eaten. What that kid in that adage does, goes to buy akara. Because in their small minds, how could they think of more?

There are corrupt people in every country. But some are more ambitious than others. All the money that will be stolen by corrupt officials in Nigeria this year is not up to Elon Musk’s taxes. That’s saying something. When as a governor or president you appoint people, save if you lay down a marker around deliverables and responsibilities, chances are that some of the appointed will see your decision as a commitment to helping them advance their personal wealth and prosperity.

We often have the most to say about our leaders. When we do, we speak from a perspective that suggests that we are inherently better than them. There is no evidence to that effect though. I have dealings directly and indirectly with several Estate Associations in Abuja and Lagos. There is none of those associations I’d advance as the sort of best practice for a state government or the federal government to follow. Mind that these are organisations often involving less than 1000 people, yet even at that level, governance appears to look like quantum physics. You could pick alumni groups, faith groups, professional associations and the likes. Even ordinary WhatsApp groups. The ones that are well-run are likely to be the outliers. These organisations have a lot in common that often is the micro reflection of the leadership we get at subnational and national level.

It is that collective lack of ambition and vision. The refusal to see leadership as an opportunity to advance the lot. The inability to learn from even some of our own successes to replicate them. We are in denial, one to another, altogether. The ones who are loudest today about things not working either once had the chance to make things work and failed woefully or are just looking for their own chance, not because they have any clue as to how to make anything work; just a chance to take their own bite of that seemingly endless national cake. We must do better.

 Omojuwa is chief strategist Alpha Reach/BGX Publishing