the weeds always grow back

a couple of weeks ago, i was moving in a car with my friend when an ambulance passed by. as is customary in the US, every car moved sideways so it could go. as it left, my friend commented on how all the cars automatically made way for the ambulance and how this would probably not have been done in nigeria. in his words, "one danfo driver for don dey fight with them". i laughed.

i don't think it's new to anyone that nigeria's problem is systemic. at almost every level you can think of in nigeria, something is broken. the fact that the chairman of the board responsible for catching fraudsters turned out to be a fraud himself tells a pretty good story on that. i hope we’ve not forgotten that the governor of the central bank looted so much money they saw bags of dollars in his home?

heck, these are even more surface level. go down to the local orgs and you see that things are broken from "first principles".

however if you ask most people the solution to nigeria's problems, they go into a long speech on getting the right leaders. for the record, i think the current administration is one of the worst to ever exist. they are as useless as useless can get. but i'll still argue that they aren't single handedly responsible for nigeria's problems. infact, you could argue they are responsible for a small portion of it. the fact that the current administration is in power is a sign of how systemic nigeria's problem is. during the last election, probably the most annoying statement i heard was "he's from our tribe. it's our turn". our turn to do what exactly? when did deciding who to lead the affairs of the nation become a problem we solve by using queues when the goal should be to pick the best of the bunch? a lot of people, and even i would join them, would argue that if the party that was supported widely by youths from across the country won the election, things wouldn't be this bad. well, i sure hope increasing the fuel price by almost 6x and increasing inflation by roughly 16% is enough to satisfy the delights of it's our turn.

elections aren't the only place where the systemic nature of nigeria's problems show up. it’s in clear effect in how jobs at local government agencies are decided by "connections". the fact that teachers sign 8am as their time of reporting to duty when they clearly arrived at 10am is another sign. don't even get me started on the atrocities of public schools officials and government workers in general. it's abysmal.

so when people propose changing the leaders, we fail to see the big picture. if for some reason, we get the so-called "messiah" to the presidential position, the person can only stay for a maximum of 8 years as things stand. all the "progress" achieved in that 8 years will easily be wiped out in 6-8 months of a terrible reign again.

in agriculture, there are two classes of herbicides: contact & systemic. contact herbicides kill the weeds in hours. it's very fast and if you have a big portion of land to spray, you might see the effects starting to take place in your starting position by the end of your spraying. systemic herbicides, on the other hand, take more time. it can range from 5-10 days before you start seeing the effects at all. there's however a more subtle difference than just time taken between those two — it's the mode of action. contact herbicides achieve that speed because they only kill the weeds at the surface. they kill the leaves and the stem. the root is much stronger so they don't affect it as much. systemic herbicides however kill the weed straight from the root. the leaves and stem automatically die because the root is dead. what this means is that if you use contact herbicides, be prepared to use it again soon because the weeds will grow back soon. with systemic herbicides, you have peace for a longer period of time. until a new seed of weed reaches that place, nothing grows. there's a lot of nuance to which is used but that's sorta the overall idea.

my parents liked both, and so, they came up with an idea (or maybe they got it somewhere, idk tbh). the idea was that instead of only using one, they would mix together the two in equal proportions. this way, they got the fast killing action of the contact herbicides and the slow but sure root destruction abilities of the systemic herbicides. you'll have to ask my dad how they made the whole chemical mixing work but i just know it always worked. the plants died pretty quickly and they still took a long time to regrow.

i postulate that nigeria needs this kind of hybrid approach. the contact part of this treatment is the most talked about and it's trying to elect capable leaders. i am not supporting any party or anyone in particular but if we can vote for capable people instead of picking based on feelings or tribalism, we'll stand a chance. this isn't just for the presidential level. we need capable leaders at every possible level right down to the grassroots. we've seen what's happening in abia where they have a good governor. imagine how better that would be if we replicated that across every state and at every local level. if we can get this done for the senate positions and house of representatives as well, that would be bang! the president is obviously very important but his effect isn't lesser if we have good people in other positions.

this is the contact part of the treatment, and the most obvious part of the solution. but it's also worth saying: people already have more power over that part than we give ourselves credit for. we've seen it — multiple states, different administrations — that when people really do gather, they can vote someone out regardless of the rigging that gets attempted. we saw it under Jonathan's tenure: people had had enough, and they voted him out. we saw it on Oyo State and Osun state when they all gathered together to vote out the incumbent party. so it's not accurate to say leadership is entirely out of our hands. the problem is that a lot of people are proposing contact solutions to a problem that's clearly systemic.

the least obvious but yet most important part of the treatment is the complete treatment of the country from its grassroots. and no, i am not asking for us to teach civic education in all schools. that course is useless imo. i took it and yeah, i am probably more informed about the political structure of the country, but most of that would have been gotten from just a few hours of google search and proper interest.

this systemic approach, just like the herbicides, seeks to approach the problem from the roots. i think every nigerian needs to look at themselves hard and long in the mirror. we're all fundamentally broken. we all have a problem with nepotism only when we don't benefit from it. corruption is bad when the president or people in public offices do it but it's just "enjoying where i sow" when we get wrong gains from our place of work. a lot of people working in public offices particularly do this. they cut off opportunities to other people and give them specifically to their close friends and families. every once in a blue moon when the government does give out things/resources to be shared for the benefit of citizens, those assigned to share it take it for themselves.

one popular slogan during Buhari's tenure was "change begins with me". ironic, but that's the most important part of the solution to nigeria's problem. every one of us needs to do right. cultivate a habit of doing the right thing and train your children to do the same. sometimes you don't even have to train them specifically — once they see you doing the right thing, they'll do it as well.

resist the urge to partake in wrong, even if it's beneficial.

the entire yahoo boy culture needs to be slowly eradicated and made unpopular. there's only little the government can do about this — this is a personal/communal problem. fraudsters shouldn't be celebrated. they should be shamed to the point where people aren't celebrating their "wins" on tiktok. being a fraudster should become a thing that's maligned.

our schools should reward excellence more and encourage the bold & relentless pursuit of knowledge in all fields. one of the major issues stagnating economic growth in nigeria is the clear lack of innovation and manufacturing power. most of the things we use are created, invented, and in most cases, even manufactured outside the country. this means we add costs of exportation and we buy production materials outside the country, thereby increasing the cost.

this can't just be remedied by getting a new president. we need a conscious and collective action towards innovation and scientific research. our current educational system focuses too heavily on theory and not enough on hands-on work. we have also created a system that pushes the smartest people to only try to become doctors or lawyers or engineers. we need more nigerians in research, actively pushing the frontier of knowledge and making new waves in diverse fields like botany, economics, infrastructural development, computer science and more. the gdp of a country, in my opinion, is indicative of how much research in that country affects the globe and is consequential. we need to celebrate researchers and ensure that they have access to more grants and funding to pursue new ideas and technologies. yes, the infrastructure and funding required for research is capital intensive but that is something that also requires a collective action. the US government only funds around 20 - 22 % of research in the US. the majority of it is by private entities.

as bad as things might seem, a new & better nigeria is possible. but changing our leaders is just the first step in the solution. more action has to be taken from each citizen and community across the country. living outside the country has allowed me to see how talented nigerians are across the globe. we're a talented, ingenious, and hardworking set of people who occupy consequential positions across the world. if there's anything we lack, brain power isn't one of them. we have it in spades. we just need to create the right environment for that to be nurtured and developed.

by no means will it be easy, but if we can all gather together and do our little part, the fallen giant of Africa will rise again.

unconventional thinker