If Mercy Johnson visits Omotola Jalade, and she was served tasty eforiro soup which Omotola had prepared, will Mercy Johnson always return to collect from Omotola’s house when she and her family want to eat eforiro, or will she ask Omotola to teach her how to make the soup? Mercy Johnson would most probably ask Omotola to teach her how to make the soup. When Mercy Johnson gets home, she will try to prepare the soup using the lesson she got from Omotola. Mercy Johnson may not make the soup perfectly in the first few attempts, but with patient and steady practice, she will improve. If Mercy Johnson is able to learn how to prepare the eforiro, she will overcome the fear to move from importation to production of eforiro in her house.
Many Nigerians criticise Nigerians’ inability to produce items they need to develop their society. They ridicule Nigerian engineers, who have failed to use local resources to produce technological items for Nigerians. Despite the clamour for Nigerian productivity, many Nigerians still choose foreign products and services over the very few ones produced in Nigeria.[1] A Nigerian professor noted that Nigerian products (Aba-made) and contracts lack integrity compared to their foreign counterparts. With this mentality, it becomes difficult to overcome the national fear and obstacles to move from importation to production in Nigeria.
The obstacles to industrial growth in Nigeria could be classified into political and attitudinal
On the POLITICAL FACTOR, Nigeria is a nation of survivors;[2] a jungle where everybody is struggling to survive, even at the expense of others. There has never been a sincere national agreement to live and collaborate for development, justice and peace.[3] Instead, using the military force,[4] Nigerian government seized the resources which engineers are supposed to use for producing commodities in Nigeria.[5][6][7] The government auctions these resources to foreign companies,[8] only to import the finished goods from the companies at high prices.[9] Hence, some political officers, civil servants and businesspeople plot means to obtain resource-money or import profit: foreign coaches, contractors, goods and services.
The political and economic factors in overcoming the fear of moving from importation to production include:
- Difficulty in adjusting foreign Business interests over policies for local investments: Many people ask for change, but are not ready for it.[10] Many Nigerians are allied with foreign firms who either get crude resources from Nigeria, or supply finished goods to Nigeria. They have invested time and money in their relationship with foreign firms. And it will be difficult for them to alter their already-established source of wealth. So, without proper handling, these businesspeople can frustrate efforts to create quality local production through political lobbying or other means.
- External competition: Many foreign companies have lion-shares in the Nigerian market and will resist the split of such shares with local producers. Hence, they will strive to sabotage local efforts to provide Nigerian made goods and services by lobbying politicians for continued market control.
ON THE ATTITUDINAL, some Nigerians have accepted the dependence on importation that they brag about using imported items over locally-made, which they tag as poor products for poor people. This mentality is a hangover of the colonial encounter that has been sustained by neo-colonial education. “The educational system still trains people for a life style that is unavailable and unaffordable to most Nigerians… it alienates the Nigerian from his environment… in contrast to our pre-colonial education, which was tied to our ways of life.”[11] And the factors behind this attitudes are:
- Inferiority complex: The African encounter with colonialists left harmful effects on Nigerian psych. The colonialists’ technological superiority, which was shown in their weapons still demoralized Africans, and the Europeans played on this effect by insisting that technical knowledge was above the grasp of African minds. “European oil-companies insisted that oil-industry technology was so complex that we would never ever in the next five hundred years be able to figure it out.”[12] Nigerians are now taught the importation skills of reading, writing and counting, instead of the skills for utilizing local resources for production.[13]
Obviously, many Nigerians are yet to escape the inferiority complex acquired by the foreign design of Nigerian education for unproductivity. Nigerian students now hope to graduate and work with multinational companies, instead of learning to produce items from local resources in Nigeria. Nigerian engineering and pharmacy graduates seek employment in banking, auditing or marketing firms where they are to write, count and report on imported products, services and ideas.
- Inter-tribal disharmony and distrust: The invasion of the colonial masters had a more damaging effect on the foundational social structure of African communities. “Africa’s nation states were formed by foreigners, lines drawn by Europeans on maps of places they had often never been to. They carved out territories, cut up kingdoms and societies of which they had little idea… They (African countries) lack a common conception of nationhood.”[14] Nigeria is a British-formed country of different ethnic communities who were joined under an alien political structure to sustain the colonialists’ exploitation of mineral resources from the different ethnic communities.
Like various beasts thrown into a cage, the different ethnic communities endlessly fight to control the neo-colonial resource-trading process. This fight is calmed by sharing money from selling people’s mineral resources to the colonialists. Hence, while ethnic communities are distracted in struggling positions for sharing allocations, foreign companies export the mineral resources. This is “the problem of social control, which concerns the issue of the development and maintenance of viable social orders, within which individuals can exercise their rights, perform their obligation and realize their genuine human potentials.”[15]
POSSIBLE STEPS TO MOVE FROM IMPORTATION TO PRODUCTION IN NIGERIA
We identified political and attitudinal factors hindering the move from importation to production. Olusegun Oladipo insists that the most fundamental factor for acquisition and utilization of resources in production is social control. “If we are unable to solve the problem of social control, we are unlikely to be in a position to secure our cultural autonomy …and to use scientific knowledge to promote human wellbeing.”[16] So, Nigerian ethnic communities must discuss terms and conditions of their partnership for peace and productivity. The different sections have to align to own and manage their resources, because the nation cannot work without proper distinction of rights and obligations.
- The different sections of the country can then reform the engineering departments to practice production of goods using accessible local resources within their sections.
- These reformed sections can invite industrious Nigerians in diaspora to train locally-trained engineers on processes of modern productivity.
- The businesspeople who had allied with foreign companies can be offered privileges to invest in, or establish local industries in Nigeria for production.
- Foreign companies who are willing to collaborate can then be allowed to create other products in order to check indigenous laxity.
The local products may not match the foreign standards within the first few months or years in the move from importation to production. However, like Mercy Johnson’s patient and consistent success, they will improve and produce better items. Modern Chinese boom began with patiently copying what other countries made, now they are making a lot of things. In the same vein, a Nigeria that has been reorganized according to their adequate potentials will patiently improve themselves. They will overcome extreme dependence and move from importation to production.
[1] Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, (MAN) reported by Udeme Clement on January 12, 2014 https://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/01/foreigners-taken-economy-man/
[2] Cf. Chukwunwike Enekwechi, Nigerians are not DNA corrupt, http://restartnaija.com/2017/06/01/nigerians-are-not-dna-corrupt/
[3] cf. Richard Dowden, Africa altered states, ordinary miracles. New York: Public Affairs, 2010. p.445
[4] 29th March 1978, Land use act. P7
[5] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1, paragraph 2
[6] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 2, paragraph 1
[7] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1, paragraph 3
[8] Cf. Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1, paragraph 3
[9] Manufacturer’s Association of Nigeria, op cit
[10] Cf. Robert Greene, 48 Laws of Power, (London, Profile Books, 2002). p392
[11] Ogban Ogban-Iyam, Re-Inventing Nigeria through Pre-colonial Traditions In Issues in contemporary political economy of Nigeria.edited by Hassan A. Saliu.(Ilorin: T.A. Olayeri press, 1999). P73
[12] Chinua Achebe, There was a country, (USA: Penguin Press, 2012). P157
[13] Cf. Prof. Malomo Ade, Bioethics lecture at the Department of Surgery, University College Hospital, University of Ibadan. 21/03/2017
[14] Richard Dowden, op. Cit. p3
[15] Olusegun Oladipo, The idea of African philosophy, third edition (Ibadan: Hope Publications, 2014). p114
[16] Ibid p114