NIGERIA – MY NIGERIA

Nigeria, a blessed country located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. A country whose name originates from the River Niger which runs through it, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the most populous country in the world in which the majority of the population is black.

Over the years a lot of things have been said about this Pride of Africa some of which are constructive while a lot of others, just baseless. For instance in time past, Nigeria use to have so many teething problems in her election processes and militancy pressure in her Niger Delta region however all these has been duly tackled and grinded to a halt. Thus, the recently concluded national election emerged as the freest and fairest in the history of the country and the militancy pressure had since been successfully put to rest. Presently, the on-going over flocked terrorism attack by the Boko Haram group in the north is gradually phasing out and peace is being restored to distressed zones thereby reaffirming the mandate of the federal government to curb all vices. Fascinatingly, despite the challenges that were on then, Nigeria never seized to host visitors who constantly came in from far and near to explore great opportunities all over the country because they understood the Nigerian spirit which guarantees continual development.

A PROFESSION CALLED BEGGING

A constant struggle for survival, severe hardship everywhere, poor infrastructures, limited good health care facilities, crashed educational sector, stark unemployment, chronic poverty enabled, evenly distributed accursed political leaders nationwide, epileptic power supply, gross insecurity activated, zero self-esteem highlighted and the list of farce goes on and on. What the heck is wrong with our government? Who the heck is responsible for fixing this shit? What the heck do they do with the money looted from our national treasury? These and many more have been the questions born out of our national quandary with no one available to provide the answer or better-still lead the way.

Unfortunately, that isn't what I intend to address in this piece though I know its day is going to come soon where I will have to dissect and lambast the government while questioning their sickle-cell style of leadership. But while we wait for that day, let me introduce you to the latest business which is making headway in Nigeria especially in her commercial capital Lagos; it's called Begging.

MINDSET OF A LEADER

While listening to a medical doctor friend talk at the Chinua Achebe Arts Theatre in Calabar recently, this subject popped up in my mind and so I decided to give it a follow up. I took my time to go through the lives of different leaders and tried to check for similarities in their ways of reasoning and decision making. After a thorough research, I came out with these findings:

LEADERS ARE POSITIVE THINKERS

Often I wonder how leaders always succeed in convincing their team members to dare even when obstacles are crystal clear. They would go ahead encouraging, motivating and challenging them (team members) to make the obvious (failure) become a mirage. So many times, I am tempted to believe that their motivations are just empty statements used to give failure nice clothing but it doesn't ever seem so because, the supposed failure always ends up as a success. Think of Thomas Edison who was interviewed by a young reporter who boldly asked him if he felt like a failure and if he thought he should just give up now on his quest to invent the electric light bulb. Perplexed, Edison replied, “Young man, why should I feel like a failure? And why should I ever give up? I now know definitely over 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp.” And shortly after that and over 10,000 attempts, Thomas Edison finally invented the electric light bulb. Amazing!

WHEN LEADERSHIP IS CASE SENSITIVE

Almost everyone who has ever existed on the surface of this earth has had a reason to complain about bad leadership at one point or the other of their lives and that has prompted me to write this article. An age long adage goes thus ‘he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches’ and believe me this has become a lasting truth. You would agree with me that just as every spectator makes a very good footballer only from the stands and every audience always puts up a stellar performance only from their seats, so also is every individual a good leader from the crowd.  Take it or leave it, leadership is never an easy task especially when you are considering variations in backgrounds and beliefs of followers.

Unarguably, leadership is a thing of pride. Now, because of the glory, power and fame that goes with leadership positions, so many leaders have taken to hostile life styles and these acts has left their followers asking for a replacement. Among this hostile breed of leaders are those power mongers who would never mind lifetime in power, or people’s heads rolling as ransom for their misdeeds, or those who would even go to war just for a baseless quest for superiority. I often tell my audience whenever I deliver talks that these leaders adopt these pushy attitudes just to hide their inferiority complexes and fears. They all try to fake guts because they have weak biceps!

FAILING FORWARD

The world is full of people with different personality traits and guts which defines its complexity. While some people see failure as a disease to be dreaded, so many others see it as a parameter for measuring success. If truth be told, everyone has failed before though at different levels and with variations in consequences; but failure in its entirety is utterly unavoidable. Realizing this reality, some people use failure as a catalyst for success while others still blindfolded regard it as a barricade to success and as a result, they end up dwelling in their failure while accumulating excuses and seeing everything as being wrong in their lives rather than in their might and mind. Failure is failure and should not be padded to be a cul-de-sac but a passage to success.

History has recorded so many great men who failed a couple of times and yet were able to make it to the zenith of life by dint of hard work. From Abraham Lincoln in politics to Thomas Edison in sciences and even Aliko Dangote in business, failure has always been a constant yet these men prevailed against odds. Failure is not what stops or hinders us in life but our attitude towards it.

Think Categories, Not Brands

While working on my Face Book page some months ago, I can remember posting a comment that generated so many arguable opinions and feedbacks. Now, what was it I posted that my friends and fans were so busy arguing amongst themselves about? It was simple, “It is easier and better to be the first than it is to be better” and later I’ll explain what I meant. So many people were vexed and opposed my assertion while so many others appreciated my out-of-the-box line of thought. Astonishingly, about a week after the post I read a book titled ‘The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing’ by Al Ries & Jack Trout and guess what; we all belonged to the same school of thought.

Believe me it is easier to be the first than it is to be the best because, the former is a pacesetter and his name automatically becomes a generic for that category whereas the latter would have to compete with many others using up a lot of resources in other to be the best, which in many cases they rarely achieve their quest. Surprisingly, findings have shown that despite the regular spending spree of these latter contestants, they still suffer from people unconsciously identifying their products by the formers name. For instance, think of how many times you have gone to buy a detergent and mentioned the name of the first in that category whereas that wasn’t what you probably needed or, think of how many things has happened to you for the first time that you remember but have forgotten the rest occurrences in the same category. The truth is that the mind is a magnet that places priority on ‘the first’ other than ‘the rest’.

TEACHING-LEARNING STANDARDS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CALABAR: THE STUDENTS PERSPECTIVE

The growth of any nation no doubt is tied to the quality of its citizenry, many in which case have to be literate so as to be able to position the country in such a way that it can compete favourably in this trendy Boomerang Age of ours, thus the need for a healthy teaching-learning standard. Pai Obanya once said, “Universities worldwide have always striven to belong to a unique ‘universe’, that special space, operational modalities, appropriate facilities, global outreach and collegiate atmosphere that is most conducive for the pursuit of its triple mandate of: Knowledge generation (or research), Knowledge transmission (or teaching) and Knowledge application (or society engagement)” because of their foreseen relevance in nation building.

Interestingly, good standards and structures have become a pivotal paradigm in the discourse of university education. The advent of the Knowledge Economy has brought about ‘global competitiveness’ which has in turn impelled universities to desire being the best amongst equals, since there became an external social and competitive push for people to seek education in the most driven institutions, for a chance in this cut-throat world of ours. Now, the University of Calabar built over three decades ago has no doubt contributed in one way or the other towards meeting this cumbersome feat. Sadly though, she hasn’t gotten any favourable national or international rating. This piece is geared towards diagnosing the hiccups and proffering realistic resolutions to the challenges posed by this new generation on our school, the University of Calabar which will be addressed as Unical all through this write-up.