The population of Africa is about 900m people while that of Belgium is 11m. Belgium is a country while Africa is a continent with 53 nations but the GDP of Belgium is equivalent to that of Africa. Meaning that what 11m people of Belgium produce is equivalent to what the 700m people of Africa produce. Africa has the largest deposit of natural resource in the world.
Ghana has gold for exportation but there is no gold at the seat of government in Ghana while gold is used to decorate the Buckingham palace, Britain does not have gold they have coal.
Nigeria has crude oil, exports it and import refined petroleum products for local consumption. The citizens of Namibia cannot afford the price of diamond which is their natural resource while cocoa in Botswana is taken to Switzerland for processing.
No doubt, Nigeria is a blessed nation, there is no state in Nigeria that does not have one natural resource or the other, the problem is the ability to process the resources into consumable product, the bottom line is the ability to think!
As Nigerians we have allowed the circumstance around us to affect our sense of reasoning, our greatest tragedy as a people is that we hardly do productive thinking. All we think about is how to get rich quick. While some people in other parts of the world are busy thinking about how to make the world a better place to live in, Nigerians think about importing the latest product. What is it in Nigeria that we do not import?
It is very unfortunate that with the number of electrical engineers, the huge number of technicians that Nigeria claim to be her citizen, we cannot boast of 24-hour access to power supply.
Years back, an American went into a research and discovered over eighty uses of groundnut. Apart from eating, what else do we do with our groundnut pyramid? We consume so much and produce nothing.
Our problems will continue to multiply if we continue to have too much respect for the paper, I mean the certificate that our school system issue out to graduates. What has been the benefit of the thousands of graduates that our ivory tower produce yearly on the GDP of Nigeria? The greatest inventors in the world are school dropouts, quite a number of the Fortune 500 companies are established by school dropout, it ought not to be about the certificate we carry around but what problem can we solve? Our inability to think overtime led to the large chunk of unemployed youths around, even government cannot employ them because government officials in Nigeria also do not think. Instead of thinking and offering solutions, they speak with E.U., USAID, China, Japan e.t.c, who naturally will not solve our problems for us.
Our problem does not need governmental intervention if individuals can think and solve the problems around them. Let us stop looking at the government as the author and finisher of our salvation.
Who could have thought that a company could be built on human waste in Nigeria? Otunba Gadaffi of DMT Mobile toilet is a proof that, “shit business is really a serious business.” He is building a factory to produce cooking gas from human waste. This is the example of the thinking ability I’m talking about. He will start paying you for offloading your sulk away!
Seated on tables across Nigeria is a guy called Bill Gate, he only visited Nigeria once but who does not use a Windows Operating System? He is not thinking about how to become the richest man in the world but always thinking about how to make computers more friendly to computer users, the more he is thinking about that, the more computer users offload their pocket to him.
Napoleon Hill never said have degrees and grow rich or work and grow rich but “Think And Grow Rich.”
The current chairman of Ford Motor Corporation is the sixth generation of Henry Ford; years back he thought about how to manufacture cars for the common man, his generations are still enjoying the fruits of his thinking ability. What will you leave for generations coming after you?
We have lots of problems that need solution in Nigeria. Think about how to make daily essential needs available locally. Our fabrics are imported, the best selling ankara materials in our market are imported from Singapore. Why do we have coffee trees and cannot process coffee locally?
Technologically, Nigeria is no where to be found but things can change if you think about it.
Japan, China, Britain does not have oil, they do not have bitumen, they do not have gold but they are richer than Nigeria.
Nigeria will become the world’s most powerful nation. Think about it.
God bless you!
God bless Nigeria!
God bless Africa!
Thank you very much Ope, you have graphgically captured us, Africans.It is a tragedy, a monumental shame.At times I wonder about what went wrong with Africans.