Developing countries such as Nigeria face numerous dilemmas with respect to the best way to do things. We are grappling with “best practice” adoption. But innovators believe that best practices often constitute the strongest argument against innovation. Even in the absence of a consensus definition of innovation, the outcomes of innovation are often unmistakable. Nigerian may now be exnovating as a nation.
An x-ray of the combined efforts of people, businesses and government – evident in the progress made in governance, growth of domestic businesses and quality of service in certain institutions such as universities and health centers -reveals a broad apathy towards innovation. Nigeria has been confortable with transferring technology as opposed to developing anyone; learning about efficient systems as opposed to creating one; adopting proven methods and procedures as opposed to designing one. From the highest echelons of government to the leading clubs of private sector leaders; the second hand, less troubling and seemingly easier approaches of transfer, learning and adoption has been mainstreamed as the default approach to problems. These are evident in most national statistics and human development indices that reveal stagnancy and mostly retardation.
A “recipient posture” to technology, processes and systems is simply inimical to progress and this approach- evident across several frontiers in our nation – is useful up toa narrow limits. It will never compare or equate the benefits, the appropriateness and the value content of self-developed, self-created and self-designed approaches. An innovative approach to economic and political problems that challengewidely accepted and legacy systems and which take a nation’s unique disposition into consideration in proffering solutions is simply invaluable.
One of the dangerous implications of the visibly poor innovation culture in many spheres of Nigeria’s national life is the unhealthy reliance (mostly overreliance) on other people, organizations and nations in understanding and also in solving our problems. From the unfair number of foreigners that occupy certain work positions in Nigeria (simply due to superior skills and technological advantages), to the reliance on foreign nations for sophisticated services such as advanced healthcare.
In-country, we see tertiary institutions and research centers that invent nothing in decades, and we finance healthcare centers that pioneer nothing in centuries. Our schools and streets are filed with people who in spite of being endowed intellectually are shunned and suppressed by an unstated rule of anti-innovation made evident by a widespread preference for maintaining the status quo and a very rampant penchant for giving little thought to new/better ways of doing things.
But it’s now evident that if we fail today to lay the foundation for innovation in our public endeavors and delay in incentivising innovation in the private sector, we will entrench the inefficiency that affects all nations that prefer to “receive” innovation as opposed to creating it. We will as well reinforce our dependence in several ways on nations and people that create the future.
It’s often said that innovators are leaders and that’s largely true. The widespread economic and social benefits that the world has derived from the software and technological revolution of the last four decades have made a strong case for innovation in all spheres of human endeavor. From pharmaceutical breakthroughs to whole new systems for education and learning, it’s becoming evident that innovation offers some form of unrivalled competitive advantage. Which now permits the postulation that people, organizations and nations that embrace innovation will not only compete favorably, but will dictate the scope, pattern and trend of related events.
Innovation does not lie with technological systems as may be erroneously construed. Nigeria’s failure to make a meaningful change to her apparently inefficient system of government for decades is also the evidence of the anti-innovation posture that has almost become a national culture. Our near static education system createshuman outputs that are mostly intellectual burdens to the nation rather than assets. We clearly do not lead in any given sphere and that’s a clear sign of our negative disposition to innovation. Pockets of creativity recorded in the last few years that scarcely befit a 5 million people nation, cannot be an accolade for a nation of 190 million people.
Our overall anti-innovation posture has made Nigeria to confront its economic, political and social problems with ineffective attention. All Innovators realise that the act of innovation transcends a single eureka moment or a countable set of connected activities. Rather it’s a pattern of events and approach to issues that most often become a culture for the innovator. Every four years Nigerians expect some magic in the form of transformational governance within a system that shuns, thought leadership and inventiveness. The wide known fact that little or no remarkable invention has come out of Nigerian’s learning institutions is not necessarily a reflection of low intellect or ignorance of persons who exist within or run that system. However it’s often a reflection of the absence of any platforms, frameworks or systematic channel for promoting innovation. There will be no magic to national transformation unless we begin to build both the mindset and institutions that will drive innovation. We will therefore need to find new ways of spotting andincubating exceptional innovators across the nation, build centers and systems in all sectors that will challenge our existing assumptions and confront the task of redefining governance and leadership methods squarely. We will need to provide dedicated funds that cater for sophisticated inquiry, research and thought leadership. We will need to build rooms for innovation in our approach to teaching/learning at all levels, as well as, approach to research in all frontiers. For now the nation is largely silent on innovation and the silence is evident.
Mama is the founder of Meiracopp Nigeria Limited (MNL) and a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Port Harcourt. (m.chijioke@meiracopp.com)
Chijioke Mama
