Football Club of Barcelona players are known with a connective and transitional style of football called TIKI-TAKA. Tiki-taka involves passing the ball among themselves from different positions until their opponents’ formation is disorganized to defend a goal. They make hundreds of accurate short dribbles and passes among themselves till the opponents’ defence opens up for them to score. They know that if everybody individually rushes to score when they get the ball, the team may never score. Likewise, if African countries continue rushing to export their crude resources in line with the colonial template without first processing and trading among themselves, they may never develop industrially.
The human and mineral resources required for producing technical products are not often deposited in one place. Twenty different resources may be sourced from ten different locations to produce one commodity. Leonard read’s “I, PENCIL”[1] theory showed how hundreds of people in different societies unconsciously contributed in the production of a single pencil without having a central planning. They only needed to develop their resources before trading with other societies who combine and use them with their own resource for other products. The graphite, cedar-wood, rubber, metal and paint used in producing pencil were produced in different places before being assembled to form a pencil.
As with pencil production, the resources for industrial products imported by African societies are not deposited in one location, but in different parts of Africa. They only have to be processed individually in their various locations by trained people before being traded with other societies. There is no society without resources, there are only societies who have not discovered their relevance of their human and natural resources. These are societies who are distracted from exploring and using the human and natural resources around them. So, they seek to invade other societies who possess high-demand resources.
Hence, there are some football-derived principles about industrial development in the international economic game that Africans must realise. Every imported finished good is like conceding a goal (own goal when you have the resources to produce the same commodity); every exported crude resource is like losing ball-possession, (fair-play when you are exporting the surplus); while the exportation of surplus finished goods is the goal of every productive society; playing well in the game of development is exporting more surplus finished goods than you import, and having good ball possession is importing more raw materials than you export. African societies must therefore form teams to trade their semi-processed resources among themselves, otherwise they will keep begging for international aid.
To form industrial teams, African societies must discuss, agree and reorganize their societies, for two cannot walk unless they agree.[2] This agreement is vital because African nation states were not formed on the agreement of the different African cultures. Instead, they were formed by Europeans who used brutal force to cut and join unconsented kingdoms and communities.[3] This agreement will be directed towards the people’s liberty to privately discover, manage and trade their locally processed resources among African societies. This will lead to an increased interest in technological education and training towards modern methods for processing these resources. Organized intelligence is the new factor of production.[4]
Presently, like hypnotized maidens, some African countries try to outdo one another in selling crude resources to foreigners. Some even rush to export staple food when people in their locality have not eaten nor learnt processing those crude resources.
Despite all these, a new standard will spring for Africans to develop their crude resources for Africa’s sustenance first, before foreign trade. Akwa-Ibom must produce and trade with Kogi and Osun, Anambra produce and trade with Kano and Taraba; Kano produce and trade with Lagos, Lagos must produce and trade with Ghana, Togo and Benin, and vice versa. Unless we collaborate to develop and trade our resources for higher productivity and sustenance, we may never appreciate the industrial value of our resources; we may never attain economic independence, and they will continue to call us “SHITHOLE COUNTRIES” and “FANTASTICALLY CORRUPT” people.
[1] Leonard Read, I Pencil, https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil-audio-pdf-and-html/
[2] Amos 3:3
[3] S. O. Oyedele, Federalism in Nigeria, In Issues in contemporary political economy of Nigeria, edited by Hassan A. Saliu. (Ilorin: T.A. Olayeri Publishers, 1999). P.57
[4] J.K. Galbraith, The New Industrial State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967) In Felix E. Ogbimi, Solution to Mass Unemployment in Nigeria (Ile-Ife: OAU Press, 2007) p.54