I was going through some of my random jottings of encounters with remarkable people when I came across this quotation "You people over celebrate, but under achieve!". It is from my encounter with an Hong Kong based Chinese business executive who once worked in Nigeria. It was during a British Airways flight from London to Houston, Texas, last year August. For the first one hour of the flight, the man was busy working away on his laptop, while I got myself engrossed in a book. It was a book on South Korea, decades after General Park. I guess it was the cover of the book that attracted him, when he said to me You do business in South Korea? To which I said no, that I was only reading for knowledge sake. My answer would later trigger a discussion on Asian, and later Nigerian and African politics for the next two hours. I was willing to learn more about Asia from him being a native.
However, I had initially teased him that the Asian miracle happened because the Western powers led by the United States were afraid of Soviet Union and China influences in the region in the period between 1970s and 1980s, so they had to pump investments there and create prosperity as a buffer against the communist threats and by also supporting pro-Western reformist-dictators. While he didn't entirely disagree with my view, he believed that the successes of Asian countries had more to do with their traditional values more than any other thing. In his opinion, it was the foundation without which nothing could be built. According to him, they took to western approach to development without allowing it to enslave them as they never forgot who they were Asian values, he remarked, are anchored on discipline, hardwork, painstaking, thrift and sense of community. Those elements to him were never compromised. He said Africa can always borrow from Europe and Asia, but it must never compromise its traditional values. The difference between the Asian man and African man in his own view is in the area of physical and mental discipline as we have similar cultural orientation.
The problem of Africa by his own analysis, has nothing to do with knowledge but is due to lack of physical and mental discipline. So what did he mean by lack of physical and mental discipline? He explained lack of physical discipline in terms of "GREED" Too much pleasure for less work; glory seeking without honour; power without responsibility; self over community. And as for the mental discipline, he meant a lack of conviction. Inability to stick to an idea or belief, reckless paradigm shift, and our leaders' inability to govern by noble values was how he explained it. Throughout our initial discussion, he never asked of my identity. It was when the discussion got to Africa that he wanted to know if I was from there to which I said yes, and a Nigerian. Mentioning the name Nigeria jolted him. So you are from Nigeria, I once worked and did business there and have also gone to school with Nigerians, he claimed.
He appeared to be more familiar with Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers axis more because he was involved in importation of timbers, wood and teak from the area in the 1990s. What a very rich part of your country, he said. This would later opened up another discussion of his sojourn in Nigeria.
His first encounter with a Nigerian was at Imperial College in London where he studied engineering. He said he saw Nigerians as some of the most brilliant people on earth and that there was one "Olu" in his class who was the overall best student at his graduation and who works with a corporation in Japan, as they have since remained best of friends. It was the image of "Olu" that he saw in every Nigerian until he got involved in business with Nigeria years later.
Unfortunately, he became disappointed seeing how rich the country was with so much resources even more than china and yet not making good use of them. He was really amazed by the richness of Cross Rivers forest from which several industries could have emerged; yet we allow others to exploit and cart away that richness without adding value. And of course he was one of those exploiters and like he confessed, his business was out-manouvred by other smart competitors with the collusion of government officials, hence had to seek other sources in places like Garbon and Congo.
His comment about his encounters with most Nigerian workers when he had dealings with them through his local company then made me to conclude that those encounters were responsible for his theory of lack of physical and mental discipline. "You people" he said to me, "over celebrate and under-achieve".
*It is pleasure and enjoyment all the time. There is always something to celebrate everyday of the week where so much money is always wasted, to paraphrase him. I then asked him what he meant. He said, his local company in Calabar was fond of getting request from workers for loan to solve one family problem or the other. He recounted a particular experience, where one of the workers had applied for a small loan to do the naming ceremony of his third child. That when the company refused, he had to mobilise his Nigerian supervisor to come and beg on his behalf because he doesn't want his wife family members to put him to shame that he had no money to name his child. He said at other times, people asked for loan to either bury a relation or for one ceremony or the other. He felt that, if they were more sensible and inventive, they could borrow, put that borrowed funds together amongst at least four people and start a small wood fabrication business with the skills some of them had acquired working for them as raw materials would be cheaper to get, but that they were contented with little money they were being paid. This is how Asian entrepreneurship developed, he advised. He also had something to say of some of his Nigerian directors, then whom he had followed to collect chieftaincy titles in some parts of Nigeria for which he could not remember. The worrisome part of the celebration is that the roads leading to those places are usually untarred, no water and most times you see these hungry looking or half-fed villagers in tattered clothes all looking, some cheering, some curious at the event social but with no hope of a better future. For him, he wondered for what purpose the eminent sons were being honoured when there are poverty and underdevelopment everywhere.
As I glanced through the jottings, that particular word "You people over-celebrate, but underachieve" sent me on a reflection. The Chinese might have interpreted Nigeria from a narrow prism, but there was some home truth in his conclusion. He was probably talking about 15 years ago, but what has really changed since then from our attitude to life, conduct and way of life. Don' we really over celebrate and underachieve? I believe it is one honest truth we must face. You only need to take a look at Nigerian newspapers daily to see an avalanche of birthday, burial, chieftaincy or Iwuye ceremonies, awards both genuine and fake, notices of celebrations. When you see some of them particularly the awards or honourary degree conferments, you wonder on what basis?; particularly for some people who had helped to plunder the country.
Part of our over celebration is usually manifested through conspicuous consumption, gaudy exhibitionism, shameless display of opulence through reckless and unproductive competition amongst the super-rich. *My party or daughter's wedding celebration was grander than yours. *I hired an aircraft to ferry my guests. *More important people were at my chieftaincy party than his: in a country synonymous with squalour and developmental failures.
Our underachievement confronts us daily, when we craze for latest designer shirts, wrist watches, shoes, automobiles, furniture, mobile phones, computers from abroad but; cannot copy Europe by having designer roads, electricity and water supply, agricultural farms, government and business services. That underachievement is also manifested, when we build mansions in villages where there is no access to portable water or in cities where the roads leading to them are drain less, untarred and gully infested. Or when we live in super rich areas where we are only concerned about our inner opulence, but can't clean the drains or prevent shanties from developing around us. Or when we make so much but don't want to give little as tax. Then you then wonder as Thomas Jefferson, one of American's founding father once remarked: What is in individual glory, when his community is in peril".
"Over-celebrate, But Under-Achieve"
The New Republic By Tunji Bello,
Email:tunjibello@thisdayonline.com
