Monday, November 11, 2013

From ‘Pure Water’ Nigeria to ‘Innovative’ Nigeria



I am going to start this post with a very short story.

While I was growing up in the ‘city spread over seven hills’— Ibadan — in Southwest Nigeria, there was, for me at least, only one photographer in town. He went by the nom de guerre Festy De Bob. Festy De Bob had panache and ladies loved him because he flattered them with the camera. His studio was thronged by happy women. Or so go my recollections of him. Anyway, Festy De Bob captured fond memories of good times on film and stored up enduring images for posterity, for men, women and children in my neighbourhood. Personally, Mr De Bob’s lenses and dexterity helped me keep my history’s track on film; Mr Festy De Bob snapped my first ‘passport’ pictures for admission into primary school, one or two birthday celebrations for my siblings when my father won a windfall or received double promotion at work as well as my confirmation photographs at the Chapel on the University campus.

As much as I was impressed with the creations of Mr De Bob though, my state-trotting neighbours regaled me with the acclaim of an even more talented professional photographer in ‘far away’ Lagos, the Capital of the country at the time, a man named Sunmi Smart-Cole. His skill behind the camera, and his mastery of his craft were so storied and legendary. Whenever people travelled to Lagos, usually on holidays, a portrait from Mr Smart-Cole was the icing on the cake to round-off an expensive vacation for the intrepid traveller. Mr Smart-Cole never snapped my picture, but then I heard the story of an American who was more talented than Mr Smart-Cole and Mr De Bob.

The American turned out to be George Eastman, an American amateur photographer (unlike Mr De Bob and Mr Smart-Cole) but, more importantly, an innovator and entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company way back in 1888 and popularized the use of roll film, helping to bring photography to the mainstream. Nobody told me Mr Eastman was long dead several decades before I had heard of his repute. Of course, you know the usual limitations of second hand information – how patchy and incomplete it could oftentimes be; some very important details are almost always left out. But Mr Eastman had lived long enough to play a crucial role for Mr Smart-Cole and Mr De Bob to be able to carry out their craft with dexterity in their time.

Mr Festy De Bob and Mr Sunmi Smart-Cole were consumers of Mr Eastman’s innovation — by using photographic films manufactured by the company which Mr Eastman founded in 1888.

The Eastman Kodak Company (or Kodak for short) best known for photographic film products, provided packaging, functional printing, graphic communications and professional services for businesses around the world. During most of the 20th century Kodak held a dominant position in photographic film, and in 1976 had an 89% market share of photographic film sales in the United States.

For me the creativity and innovation moral from the story above is that NIGERIANS ARE NET CONSUMERS.

We must as soon as we possibly can reverse this trend of being net consumers. Neither Mr Festy De Bob nor Mr Sunmi Smart-Cole did any of the following: Create. Innovate. ‘Entreprenuerize’. Lead. They left all of that to Mr Eastman.

In my post ‘Pure Water’ Nigeria, before we took a detour to examine leadership and national dreams, I analysed the level of mass CREATIVITY and INNOVATION using the widespread business of producing and selling ‘Pure Water’, as a metaphor, to show that Nigeria was not at a level which would be desirable for a country her size and vigour.

In this post I want to follow up with some suggestions on how we can move Nigeria from the high frequency of copycats to the high frequency of creativity and innovation stage – let us call it the ‘Innovative’ Nigeria (or ‘i-Nigeria’) stage. In order to achieve the goal, I believe we require deliberate strategy and a viable vehicle.

In 1999, the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education of the United Kingdom prepared a report (All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, May 1999) for the Secretary of State for Education and Employment as well as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport noted that “Creativity is possible in all areas of human activity, including the arts, sciences, at work, at play and in all other areas of daily life. All people have creative abilities and we all have them differently. When individuals find their creative strengths, it can have an enormous impact on self-esteem and overall achievement.

NIGERIANS NEED TO BECOME NET PRODUCERS. We must: Create. Innovate. ‘Entreprenuerize’. Lead.

I have discovered that across board, Nigeria and its population have a dearth of opportunity to learn about CREATIVITY and INNOVATION in both formal and non-formal settings. Certainly, there are a handful of private institutions which are trying their best to fill this niche. But I must confess more needs to be done.

This made me start to ponder other outside-the-norm strategy one could possibly adopt to ginger citizens to engage for the purpose of achieving enhanced culture of CREATIVITY and INNOVATION for accelerated national development. Reverting people to what first made them come together to socialize in the first place cropped into my mind. People could be taught to revert to the individual streaks which they relied on to come together and forge a community for the aim of survival.

Casting my mind back, I recalled that Professor A. O. Ogomudia of the Federal University of Technology, Akure had in August 2008 given a University Annual Lecture entitled The Challenge of National Development in Nigeria: Technology as a Way Forward in which he portrayed how colonial Britain overwhelmed and dominated Nigeria by the force of superior technology. He asserted that the British were clear in their mind that the basis of their power was superior technology and that this had to be used and controlled to sustain that power. This new technology was introduced from outside and was in no way related to whatever technical expertise that existed in the country. He inferred that the ingenuity of the Nigerian enterprise was never in doubt and the dynamics of the development in this industry would have continued to grow if such had not been earlier arrested by the British. The lecture showed how technology can play a role in national development.

So let us seize upon this theory.

Technology does not exist in abeyance rather it is underpinned by the pillars of CREATIVITY and INNOVATION. And this is where the idea of now having another go at social mobilisation by promoting a culture of CREATIVITY and INNOVATION could gain relevance and momentum.

If in the past the disparate people that occupied the geographical space which would later be called ‘Nigeria’ had varieties of endogenous technical know-how and wherewithal before the amalgamation of North and Southern Protectorates by the British in 1914, why can we not remind people of their historical antecedents through civic lessons and public engagement that they should revive their creative past for a prosperous future? Is it not worth trying?

I am anxious to try, with this blog, at least to crank the engine and see whether the machine would answer and this become the vehicle to drive Nigeria to a prosperous future where poverty cannot etch an image in the mind of the people like one of Festy De Bob’s shots.

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