Inventors, Inventions, Creativity, National Inventiveness and Nigerian Society

By Kenneth Nwachinemelu David-Okafor

This post was revised on December 16, 2020 to reflect the new titled of the research into the status of creativity in Nigeria. The research would be serialized on the blog soon.

This blog post is in tandem with and meant to be complementary to a The Nation newspaper editorial opinion titled "Inventive Part" (Click Here). Now I am excited about the opportunity to draw attention to a yawning gap in the Nigerian society: inventors, inventions, national inventive capacity and creativity.

In sum, the editorial was extolling the accomplishment of Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing based on the fact that the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar and the military authorities commended Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing, a Nigerian firm, for developing spare parts for a Nigerian fighter jet.

The editorial reads in part: Inventiveness has seldom been associated with Nigeria. Technologically, that is. Yet we have been witnesses over decades to the acts Nigerians have performed that have even taken on the vitality of legends. We have celebrated our ingenuity in culture, in music, in fashion, and even in the literature.

We have had a few boasts in the areas of science and technology. One of such was the Ogbunigwe, the bomb concocted by Biafra with all its tales of devastation. We have a few, like doctors performing birth surgery of twins, and some young university students working out small triumphs for domestic uses.

Before I go any further I wish to acknowledge the accomplishments of individuals and organizations, who have by the dint of grit and personal sacrifice helped forge useful inventive items in whatever sphere in Nigeria. Thank you and well done!

Now with the appreciations out of the way, I want to turn crucial attention to what, as far as this blog is concerned, is the most important part of the editorial: Inventiveness has seldom been associated with Nigeria.

The big question would then be why has inventiveness seldom been associated with Nigeria?

There are so many reasons. And we have commenced and would be continuing examining these various reasons in great detail throughout the life of this blog. Nonetheless, we do not want to remain stuck examining hurdles and obstacles (though this must be done so we avoid pitfalls). At the present, I wish to rework the question and ask: how can inventiveness become frequently associated with Nigeria?

From the history of science and technology as well as other varieties of historical accounts from multiples sources, some of the most inventive and creative countries in the world have been driven by namely and not necessarily in any particular order: 1) personal ambition/vision; 2) environmental challenges; 3) territorial expansion/domination; 4) bid for high national competitiveness/competitive advantage; 5) intellectual property rights/advanced patent administration; 6) educational support; 7) policy support and 8) intentional government.

Nigeria can find, then focus on all these factors and build up the economy and country’s competitive advantage, but this would have to be a future prospect. Nigeria and Nigerians must become completely given to the deliberate desire to become an inventive country. Rather than relying on the incidence of few persons who put into self-effort, we should have a system in place to produce inventors and inventions.

I am also excited about the reference of the editorial to what former United States President Dwight Eisenhower called "the military industrial complex." Of course, due to the brevity of space, the editorial could not elaborate further. So I have taken the liberty to give more information not only about what former United States President Dwight Eisenhower but about one of the most inventive military organs in the world: the United States Department of Defense’s DARPA.

Highly ambitious and competitive soldier and one of the most distinguished military officers to be produced by the America Army, President Dwight Eisenhower was not happy that another country’s military, the Russian’s, had piped the United States in space technology race. He noticed Russia’s accomplishment and took steps to turn the advantage in favour of the United States; he made a bold proposal to the United States Department of Defense and thus the Advanced Research Projects Agency (now known as and called Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) was born.

The DARPA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Created in 1958 as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, its purpose was to formulate and execute research and development projects to expand the frontiers of technology and science, with the aim to reach beyond immediate military requirements. The administration was responding to the Soviet launching of Sputnik 1 in 1957, and DARPA's mission was to ensure U.S. military technology would be more sophisticated than that of the nation's potential enemies. The name of the organization changed several times from its founding name ARPA: DARPA (March 1972), ARPA (February 1993), and DARPA (March 1996). DARPA is independent from other military research and development and reports directly to senior Department of Defense management. DARPA has ca. 240 personnel (13 in management, close to 140 technical) directly managing a US$3 billion budget. DARPA funded projects have provided significant technologies that influenced many non-military fields, such as computer networking and graphical user interfaces in information technology.

 "THE STATE OF CREATIVITY IN NIGERIA" (formerly titled The Creativity Crisis in Nigeria)

With all due respect, on and off record, when can you recall a Nigerian leader becoming upset that one other country achieved some important milestone before Nigeria and vow to do something about it?

The combination of the U.S. Department of Defense, the DARPA and other military research and development make the United States Army one of the most inventive in the world, followed by Israeli Army and the Russian Army.

These countries planned to be where they are after carefully responding to a number of stimulating factors including: 1) personal ambition/vision; 2) environmental challenges; 3) territorial expansion/domination; 4) bid for high national competitiveness/competitive advantage; 5) intellectual property rights/advanced patent administration; 6) educational support; 7) policy support and 8) intentional government.

I can share with you what might be quite familiar to you already: Nigeria ranks poorly in every performance indicator measure in at least half a dozen of the above eight factors.

You do not become inventive and creative by wishful thinking; you become inventive and creative with careful, informed, sacrificial and dogged planning.

Inventors are an important but largely underutilized national resource in Nigeria just like in most developing nations. The catalogue of Nigerian inventors is so thin you can call all their names off the top of your head. Regrettably, all Nigerian inventors which we have records of succeeded entirely by self-effort or with foreign sponsorship.

Inventions are important factors in our everyday lives. Without people thinking of better ways to do things, or making contraptions to make work easier, life would be much different for us. The importance of inventions include that inventions creates new industries, spurs innovation, fuels patents culture, creates employment and improves quality of life. Inventions can catapult the wealth of a nation. In the United States, Cyrus McCormick’s mechanical reaper, Charles Goodyear’s vulcanized rubber and Alexander Bell’s telephone were among the continuous cycle of inventions that spurred America’s industrial revolution in the 1800s, created industries and later reinforced America‘s status as the premier economy in the world in the post-World War II period. Texas Instruments’ Jack Kilby’s invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 spawned the electronics industry and later-era computers, information technology and mobile telephony/communications industries. The importance of inventions in aiding socioeconomic progress and influencing life itself cannot be overstated.

Inventions however depend on among other things the vibrant and dynamic national patent administration to maximize the contribution of inventors to national economic growth and sustained development.

I can bet that Chief Innocent Chukwuma used his "native intelligence" or what Igbos would refer to as "ako na uche" to fangle this essential part rather than any formalized engineering training. Why should this be so?

If we do not wish to be embarrassed by avoidable afflictions like the falling oil prices then we have to re-work our thinking and reorder our priorities. Nigeria needs to increase her pool of inventors, national inventiveness capacity, creativity and technological sophistication for a better and improved society. One of the most vital places to start would be our educational system – formal, informal and non-formal. This blog’s research finds that currently Nigeria’s formal and informal learning systems are not exactly tailored for their graduates to gain and deploy active imagination, creative thinking and problem solving skills.

The Nigerian society is not YET friendly to inventors and inventions. A country that is in the vice grip of the spirit of rabid trading, rent-seeking, gambling with people’s future, inflated egos and get-rich-quick schemes will surely find a diligent, probing and creative thinking demeanor required for creative aspirations an anathema. These must be reversed.

Well done, again, Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing, but we now wish rather than repairing the outdated model alpha-jets built by another country, you should start planning to build Nigeria’s first military jets.

We know it would be tough but the key part is to start dreaming about the possibility in the first place!