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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