The following has been edited to meet Solving Africa’s guidelines. A link to the original article is provided at the bottom. You’ll understand why I haven’t simply linked to the article if you’re patient enough to read through. Compare this ending to the original. The author, Field Ruwe, is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.

“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.

I told him mine with a precautious smile.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Zambia.”

“Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”

“Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.”

“But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”

My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.

“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”

“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.

“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”

He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”

Quett Masire’s name popped up.

“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”

At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles.

“Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down.

From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.

“That’s white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”

I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”

He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.”

The smile vanished from my face.

“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?”

“There’s no difference.”

“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”

I gladly nodded.

“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.”

For a moment I was wordless.

“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.”

I was thinking.

He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.”

I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.

“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.

He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

I held my breath.

“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”

He looked me in the eye.

“And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”

I was deflated.

“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”

He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”

He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”

At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.

“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”

He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”

Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.

Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.

The article should have ended here. It didn’t.

What’s vexing me is that after everything Mr. Ruwe, heard Walter say, his reaction was to deflect the blame from himself (ourselves) where it rightly belongs and to point the finger at government! Madness! How does a leader stop you from inventing something? How does a leader stop you from being the change you want to see in your country and dealing with the everyday problems that are fixable without the government’s intervention? A stone crusher, better textiles, a water purifier, and other household needs. Instead, we are proud to wear our designer clothes, play on our iPads, chat on our BlackBerries and feel just that much special because we are linked – either by education or consumption – to the inventions, ideas, and achievements of the West and now, Asia.

How does government stop you from returning to Africa with your fancy Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD and the contacts you’ve made abroad to transform your so called beloved country into a place that will no longer shame you?

You see the wahala again? See how swiftly he moved the blame to the government? Mschew!

Until we start taking personal responsibility to change the crap that is our heritage, we won’t see any changes in this generation. While we may not be the reason that Africa is what it is. We definitely will be the ones to blame if it remains as it is. I know what I have to do. And as much as I can, I will do it. What’s your move?

Firstly, I must apologize to readers for the long hiatus. The travails of a Masters’ program were tough but have been duly conquered… and hopefully with aplomb. Assuredly, the time off has broadened my horizons and added to my bank of knowledge, which should result in a better and more informed read.

The headlines still carry their messages of woe and doom, but recently a new [and I believe little understood] agent has been taking a lot of the dissension. This new scapegoat is of course the lifeblood of most African nations – commodities – making it essential that we understand the basics of it, and its necessity to everyone at large, and Africans in particular.

This will probably be the least technical of all the posts, which I hope to make a weekly series, so I will keep it as simple as possible so the basics are understood.

A definition is required before I ramble on about the exciting world of commodities. Commodities are essentially inputs in the creation of other goods; they range from the easily identifiable like oil (essential to every country’s economic development) to the more looked over items such as sugar (crucial for fuelling the unflagging energy of children). Basically, commodities are what make the world run. Today, even intangible assets such as electricity and carbon emissions fall under this broad umbrella.

Over the past decade, Africa has posted incredible growth statistics, fuelled mostly by commodity sales such as metals to China, and oil to the West. The futures trading of agricultural products are possibly the most maligned occupation currently, but if properly assessed, we realize it and other commodity trading are an integral part of gauging the health of the economy. For example, the price of gold is the inverse of consumer confidence in the economy; the price of oil is a measure of production and manufacturing capacity; and the price of agriculture in markets, when properly linked, highlight crucial things like the potential of a drought, etc. Rather than seeing these as simple exploitation of resources, we should view them as a reflection of the economy we have created.

How intricately Africa’s destiny is aligned with the global performance of commodities cannot be overstated, and time permitting I shall explore further, examining them in the following categories: Energy (oil, gas, etc); Base metals (Aluminuim, copper, etc); Precious metals (gold, platinum, etc); and Soft commodities (Cocoa, sugar, etc). For each article I will give a brief overview of the category, hone in on a particular commodity, and a possible country profile might follow.

If there are particular issues you will like discussed or clarified for this series, please feel free to post in the comments section below.

Revolution. That word always conjures images of dead people in France, the U.S., and Haiti. I don’t want anymore wars and bloodshed in Africa, or anywhere else for that matter, all in the name of Revolution. But maybe, I’m seeing a different kind of revolution. A revolution against individual complacency. Against the unchecked acceptance of bad as if it were good and low standards as normal. The revolution I see is almost entirely mental. One where Africans wake up and take charge of that small piece of Africa that God has given them. A revolution where young people create jobs for themselves just by solving problems and attending to needs in their communities instead of waiting for help from governments that could care less whether you live or die. I don’t see blood and violence. No. I see hope. I see results. I see a new Africa.

It’s great to have this positive outlook that things in Africa can and will change soon. And if possible, change in our lifetime. But my goodness, the whole situation inspires very little hope doesn’t it? I’ve been back for less than six months and the hopelessness is palpable and waiting at the door.

It’s there when I see children as young as six with their begging bowls walking around town. In northern Nigeria, these kids are called the Almajiri. It’s said that their parents send them to the city for Islamic school but their masters let them roam the streets to beg. Someone tried explaining to me that moslems are obligated to help them so it isn’t like they won’t have food. This is true to an extent, but kids shouldn’t have to beg or wear tattered clothes and walk around unsupervised around town at such a young age! What does this say anout a society that’s too preoccuppied to protect its most vulnerable? Even if I gave them money or food, there’s always the lurking rumor that their masters require that they relinquish whatever money they make. This is an age old tradition and there’s very little I feel I can do about it.

The hopelessness is there when you hear that the Nigerian government is spending N10 billion naira ($670 million) to celebrate its independence while children in government schools have classes under a tree. You’d think leaders in Africa would be shamed into action. They just don’t care. How else could you explain why African presidents, ministers and senators are some of the world’s highest paid government officials?

The system is so ingrained that people who want to do the right thing are seen as the enemy. And it’s clearer by the day that no one is interested in doing right by the people they lead.

This feeling of powerlessness is so debilitating and I’ve found myself slowly shutting down and shielding my eyes from how messed up things are around me.

It’s a management issue isn’t it?
It’s a leadership issue isn’t it?
It’s western oppression issue isn’t it?
It’s an education issue isn’t it?
It’s a lack of personal responsibility issue isn’t it?

Its all these and more and the only way to come at it is to do something. Say a prayer. Sweep a street. Pick up litter. Be unnecessarily polite. Sponsor a kid through a semester, year, the entirety of school. Adopt an orphanage. Write a song. Write a poem. Write a book. Visit more often if you’re abroad. Open your eyes and dream larger if you’re at home. Speak up against injustice however small and within the limits of your courage. But speak whenever possible. Get frustrated but don’t lose hope. Wear Africa, rep Africa, own Africa. Just do something.

I can think of four times in the fifty year or so history of post-colonial Africa in which the continent had one voice, and the same couple of countries – Ghana and South Africa – were the instigators. First with Ghana being the first country to gain independence in Africa in the late fifties. Then the united struggle against apartheid in South Africa garnered by the inspiring grace of Mandela. Then when the same country won the bid to host the first world cup on the nation, and finally when Ghana proved the only African football team worth anything.

If it is possible, why then do we find it so difficult to unite? I believe it is arrogance bred from subjugation. Every African nation wanting to prove they emerged strongest, most unscathed, most refined… from the colonialism era grasps at what makes their fellow Africans unworthy… Kenyans are too timid, Nigerians are too aggressive, Ethiopians are too proud, Egyptians are too angry, South Africans think they are better than everyone. We love it! Everyone else has an issue. The times we have been united are when we single out one country to support. So, we are not really united just rallying behind achievement of another for a brief period of time.

Noble as that is, it is inherently limiting. The African world cup we were so excited about was restrictive to Africans due to the high cost of transportation and the fact that tickets could only be purchased by credit cards… CREDIT CARDS! I could not buy a ticket at the airport in Nigeria a few years ago with a card when fifteen-year-old boys in the west were charging cigarettes to it. Please realize that Nigeria is in the top five banking powerhouses on the continent. Now does it not make the ‘African world cup’ idea slightly laughable when Africans could not purchase tickets to attend it? We are acting on models made for one country and trying to throw it over the entire continent – erroneous and bound to fail.

I am proud of the fact that we proved ‘Africa’ could host such a competition glitch *fingers crossed* free. But in a week, maybe a month after the curtains fall, Africa united would be an abandoned phrase. South Africa might make some important development deals but it would not filter to the rest of us. Because they have let us share their moment of glory, but we have done little else to extend the benefits of such an event to the rest of the continent. We did not advertise the rest of the continent as a healthy business environment or a wonderful tourist destination. We frankly ‘kaitaed’ the opportunity to properly brand ourselves when many countries on the continent are about to celebrate their golden jubilees.

Save for Ghana, we could not even put forward serious teams to contend! Another of the bloggers on this site has also been addressing the issues of a United Africa, and I focus on this topic because we must ingrain this mindset in our way of thinking and development planning.

Two of the more standout features of the African marketplace have the distinct dual pleasure of being its greatest attractions and possible hindrances. I am referring to taxes – or lack thereof, and bargaining – or license to boycott goods control.

I was in the Masai market in Nairobi the other day and the price of a particular statue ranged from three hundred shillings if you were a native to five thousand if you were a Mzungu (white man). Now this is what I most love about my continent but the problem with flexible prices is inconsistent quality. Since only the maker knows the product’s true value, and the customers are often one-time tourists, the onus for quality is limited to the goods of the competition.

Competition should normally be sufficient to induce top quality unless inferior products are the norm. And that is exactly the problem – the average maker is not too concerned about the quality of his work on this continent. Mediocrity is fine because the customer allows it. The only way to transcend this is for the customer to demand better – which will not happen without experiencing the alternative. Or for the government to institute better quality, which they do not notice as they import everything.

The cost of business is extraordinary given insufficient infrastructure. This is why we need that wonderful enemy – taxes. The absence of taxes has seduced the populace into allowing irresponsibility on the part of the government. ‘Because the government takes nothing from us, we don’t have a right to demand anything from them’ – an erroneous assumption that fosters bad governance and a docile populace.

We must pay our taxes so we are forced to make the government accountable. Until the government provides support for businesses, few will find the need or resources to exhibit better products.

Often we get young entrepreneurs with charitable hearts eager to help Africa. Unfortunately, they often forget the basics. Such as a school without quality teachers is simply a building; a classroom without adequate textbooks is merely a room full of children.
These charities erecting buildings make it easy to forget the essential problem – unequal access to quality instruction. I commend their noble ideals but their misunderstanding of the actual problems detracts from creating substantial solutions.
Here are a few ideas to tackle these shortfalls.
1. Online syllabi – this is not a novel idea, in fact there is already an industry waiting in the shadows, hoping it becomes a viable market so they can jump in. While they wait for this major breakthrough, which will be soon giving the advances made in electronic reading devices, they should forge ahead with charity organizations. They should find a way to create curriculum that provides standard equitable education while remaining region sensitive and ensuring local content is adequately taught. I know more about Western history than my African past because the books available were tailored to that.
2. Laptops – the hundred laptops per child is commendable, but their marketing has not been. The way airlines provide the option to erase your carbon footprint at the end of each transaction is the way these guys should collaborate with major computer retailers. This way if you buy a laptop, you can simply add $100 to your transaction and one is sent to a little kid in the developing world. Equally as important, I feel the creation of notebooks is timely in ensuring compact computing units at a cheaper cost. I believe all major makers of computers should look into tailoring this technology adequately because even children in the developed world from poorer neighborhoods also face technological disadvantages.
3. T.I.A – similar to the Teach For America scheme, this Teach In Africa, will bring expatriate graduates home on teaching assignments. Not only does this bring an influx of quality personnel with novel ideas and dynamic methods, it also brings fresh ideas to local problems. Although I feel this should initially be restricted to émigrés and their home countries for the simple sake of building interest and empowerment, it can later be broadened to all those qualified and interested.
If we have all these in place, we have hit at the root of educational pitfalls. The cost of schooling will be greatly reduced as a child can be sponsored with a laptop and download textbooks at no cost. In addition, there will be improved Internet access that creates an avenue of necessary exposure in a rapidly globalizing world.

Robert Litan, director of research at Kauffman Foundation – a firm that specializes in promoting innovation in America said, “Between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less”. “That is about 40 million jobs. That means the established firms created no new net jobs during that period.”

Due to globalization, every existing job or position has either been taken or outsourced. In these times, the necessity of start-ups cannot be overstated. In Africa, it means we need the private sector to step up. We need the creative talents that have fled the continent to return with their acquired expertise.

This does not excuse the government of its responsibilities. In a developing society, they are the premier source for generating employment. However, the reliance on them for innovation is misplaced. We saw with the GSM that all the market needs is an enabling environment; expediency and profits handle the rest. In Nigeria, the government simply granted licenses, in a couple of years, business transactions were made more efficient, and thousands of jobs were created.

Due to the continental lack of infrastructure, there is a huge avenue for government induced job creation, both in building the amenities and in maintaining them. But soon enough that number will stagnate. I am more interested in what happens next.

For every four blacks on the African continent, one is a Nigerian. This means (like it or not), the proportion of able bodied, adequately educated, aptly funded individuals possible of sustaining job-creating start-ups will favor that country. I say this because of the shenanigans pulled in Ghana last year. Due to the electricity shortages in Nigeria, Nigerian business flocked there in droves and helped spur the economy. International organizations soon followed, and suddenly Nigerian licenses were being revoked.

The difficulty faced by non-Kenyan Africans in starting and sustaining a business in Kenya is ridiculous, yet Indians own the majority of industries – land, manufacturing, and retail. I would have no problem with this but the profits are sent to India and the hired labors are imported from India – none of this is good news for our continent.

The point of these illustrations is to state that African countries need to be more business friendly towards fellow Africans. It is imperative. Mo Ibrahim, the wealthy Sudanese businessman has been often quoted as saying individually African countries cannot be competitive on their own.

War between two nations usually stems because of money, because people care about their money. We need Africans to have financial stakes in the continent so they would care about what is happening in it.

Finally, I am not a protectionist by any means, and I think Ethiopia is taking it a bit far (you can’t buy Kelloggs in the supermarket), but I really think the rest of the continent like them need to start contemplating import embargoes. We should take the China route; our markets are young and should be protected. Inter-African trade should be developed and protected. The borders should be opened for people, goods, and businesses. Little known fact, Canada is the only country that can service all their current needs without imports. Perhaps it is why they never war.

Pan-Africanism has been whispered and then shouted the world over as a solution to Africa’s ills and a refuge for blacks the world over. However, I am hesitant to join this bandwagon especially when Ghaddafi, who just called for Nigeria to be split into two, is its current champion.

There is no doubt we need a more united market, more open borders and inter-regional trade but perhaps we must be a bit more cautious in how we try to attain this. The crisis with the Euro shows the difficulty of creating a regional monetary market and currency. Too many countries have different principles and agendas to make it easily fluent.
Without a doubt, we do need united representation on the global stage. Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia has gone some way in providing a unified front for African demands, particularly when it comes to the issue of climate change. However, it was rather disgraceful to watch the African envoy sitting in Copenhagen, hats in hand, asking for money. No concrete plans as to their intentions, no reform strategies, nothing. Frankly, they looked rather silly and very greedy.

We need to present the continent as a place of serious ambitions, and for that we need well thought-through plans and programs. So here is a policy for them. The approaching World Cup in South Africa has brought to light the difficulty of inter-Africa travel. We have always known this, but it seems the international community was rather shocked at the costs of flights. People will barely be able to make it to the bottom of the continent much less take the opportunity to explore our beautiful lands. I honestly believe a train system that runs through the continent is necessary.

All countries can chip in and it will definitely provide a useful outlet for spending climate aid. Pros and cons? Here goes.

Cons:
Being overrun by refugees (economic, social, etc) is probably the biggest fear in this situation, but it happens anyways. I feel any Nigerian who had landed in Nairobi before the recently changed ridiculous rules and saw Europeans and other whites being fast tracked while they went through all sorts of loopholes will agree with me that something must be done. There are other issues – corruption, who will run it, etc, but the Pros outweigh the Cons.

Here are some positives:

1. Since the continent is blessed with abundant sunlight, we should go for a solar assisted, energy efficient train. This promotes clean technologies research on the continent, is good for the environment, and will be cost effective in the end.

2. An open market:  It’s shameful how we continually import from non-African countries when we need markets for our own goods. I know that there are many reasons underlying this trend but publicly a lot of blame is attributed to cost of transportation.

3. Tourism among Africans. It is about time Africans started spending our excess cash on our continent. Does anyone have a clue how breathtaking Namibia is? I do not either but I have heard from a foreigner and I will appreciate if it was easier for me to confirm.

There is of course the reason that started this line of musing – cheap transportation. It should not cost 400 dollars to go from Nairobi to Addis Ababa when their countries touch!

So, this is not the alternative to pan-Africanism but I feel it is a more practical approach to stitch the continent together – something we are in dire need of.

There’s a saying in Nigeria that goes:  better soup, na money do am – which essentially means that money equals quality. I don’t think so.

In my first week home, I’m realizing that it’s not as if I was wary of returning because things would suck. My main fear boils down to one thing: things wouldn’t look nice anymore. Sounds silly right? But let’s think this through. Instead of well-planned streets, it would be semi-planned streets without sidewalks and medians. It’s not like the roads wouldn’t be paved, it’s just that it’d be done haphazardly in some cases, or ignored in others. Instead of clean, symmetrical, inviting shops, it would be shabby lopsided boxes as excuses for entrepreneurship. In fact, what one would consider a low-end bodega in New York is priced way above Whole Foods in Abuja and could pass as a high-end shop.

I’m aware that I sound like I’m complaining so let me  unpack this a little. What happened to the desire to make things look nice? What happened to demanding that the walls be absolutely straight and the paint work be impeccable when masons complete a house or shop for you? What happened to packaging and presentation? It’s not like we lack the materials present in other countries. It’s the presentation of it that becomes the deal breaker 9 times out of ten.

Stories in Nigerian cinema are clearly riveting to its audience. It’s that extra step of white balancing so the picture doesn’t look cheap and washed out, or editing so the sound is that much crisper that is missing. There are entrepreneurs every which corner. However, what makes one stand out from the pack is presentation and not necessarily the contents in his or her shop. The quick buck seems to always win out against the planned investment. At Mr. Bigg’s (Nigeria’s main fast food chain) – it’s the same thing. The drabness of their presentation makes it that much less appealing, still this franchise is making bank because it even attempts some form of decor in a country where there is none. I realize it takes money to do certain things, but I’m not talking about those types of things. I’m talking about making the most of what’s available to you. Having standards and expecting the best that you can afford. I’m talking about going the extra mile just when you’re tempted to settle because it’s all you see around you. I’m talking about stewardship. About symmetry than about quantity. About presentation than about reinvention.

I know we have it in us. Just look at the variety of clothes at church on a Sunday morning. The styles, the ingenuity, the flare. If only we’d put the same efforts into our homes, offices, shops and cities that we do into our clothes! It’s the cumulative effect of such small things as people taking the extra step to make their surroundings pretty that speaks volumes of how much they value themselves and how much they expect you to value them. Putting all that effort into clothing speaks more of vanity, which in the Nigerian situation, deserves its own article.

Wake up Nigeria, we’ve got work to do. Lots of it. And this time, I’m afraid to break this to you, it has nothing to do with the government.