Our over dependence

We complain of Nigeria’s over dependence on oil as an economic resource, yet fail to see our over dependence on a few mental resources.

Our problem is stemmed in our limited mental diversification.

Majority of the country thinks alike, we have too few people thinking differently from the masses to effect serious changes.

We need to invest in mental diversification.
For example, the school curriculum was designed to churn out graduates that would fill voids in the civil service and industry. (A situation also noted by the foremost educator Sir Ken Robinson).
But there are no jobs to fill in both the civil service and the industry. So schools like a defective plant, keeps churning out square pegs to fit round holes.
Hence, the massive joblessness prevalent in a country with immerse mineral and natural resources.

There’s a need to mass produce a different mental class of graduates to provide a different class of mental resource to the nation, and to do that a different mental class of teachers is needed.

All this is just one human resource area of the country

The abundance and dependence of a certain mental class indicates strongly the type of nation that would exist.
For example China is a country filled with “witty craftsmen” and thus can fabricate and recreate anything they see or get their hands on.  But the country on its own is not innovative or novel in idea conception, an indication of the absence of another mental class.

America on the other hand has an abundance of innovators and critical thinkers this is evident in the novelty of ideas and concepts which most often than not, exported to China for its translation to reality.

Nigeria is over dependent on two out of the 10 mental classes I know of: religious leadership and governance . The first being well developed while the latter underdeveloped, yet we are overly dependent on both of them.

Although this two classes are very important in any society,  the suppression of the others lead to technical anomalies.

For example,  Nigeria’s religious leaders are so well developed in their capacity that we export religion to 1st world countries yet import food.
Think about that.

God bless Nigeria
Jonnwakalo Okechukwu
Image source:http://www.economywatch.com/features/Should-Nigeria-have-Solved-Their-Oil-Dependence-Problem-by-Now1013.html
#commonsense #Nigeria

Relative Deprivation: (The story of an Average Nigerian).

Relative deprivation is the experience of being deprived of something to which one believes to be entitled. It refers to the discontent people feel when they compare their positions to others and realize that they have less of what they believe themselves to be entitled than those around them.

Nigeria ranks 12th in the world on price of PMS. That is there are only 11 countries that sell fuel cheaper than us. With the recent change our rank may fall to about 37th position . (Note: position ties are counted so actual ranking would be lower)
Hence, we sell PMS cheaper than most countries in the world.

The average monthly salary of an American bank Teller is about $2500 while that of a Nigerian banker is about NGN100,000 which translates to about $500.  At first sight the disparity looks too high. That’s because it’s measured relatively.

The average cost of an inexpensive meal in America is $12, while in Nigeria it’s about 600, (that’s what a link says, but we know bole, ewa  agoyin, roasted yam, okpa and the test, are far much cheaper so I’ll use N400. Which is even too much, I no fit chop N400 okpa)

Hence if two tellers eat for 5 days, in America he /she would have spent about 2.5% of her salary, while in Nigeria 2%
Relatively the expense is the same
Haircut
USA $28  ( 1.1% of income)
Nigeria NGN 300 (0.3% of income)

The trend is the same for housing, clothing, virtually everything. Relative to Nigeria, Nigerians have better value for their money than an American counterpart. But relative to America, we are broke and suffering.

The truth is that we’ve used the western countries as a yardstick for good living, this then presents a false picture of what life should be like. A Nigerian banker then goes to by a Crockett & Jones bespoke shoe for $550(lol, he’s monthly salary) when he can by and Aba bespoke shoe for about 5-10% of that same price with almost the same quality.

Their picture should just guide us on what development should look like. But, we should create a system that produces better value for money. The truth is that with increase in salary on a national scale without adequate checks and balances, the overall cost of goods would increase to match that increase in salary, giving us the same value for money.

That’s the case in America, their high salaries are matched with equally high cost of goods and services, making us to live relatively better lives here in Nigeria. But, when we travel out and our scale changes, we soon realise we’re worse off.

An average Nigerian wants Harvard standard of education but we cannot afford Harvard fees, our expensive private schools are relatively cheaper compared to those abroad.

There’s need to increase the “standard of living”, a huge need, but this shouldn’t be done by comparing ourselves to the west.

This can be done developing our local capacities not to match the western world but to effectively solve both local and international challenges. By doing so, we would create a niche for ourselves and become sought after. And this is exactly what China did.

We’ve got work to do, together we can build a nation of our dreams.
#GodblessNigeria

Sources
Boundless. “Relative Deprivation Approach.” Boundless Sociology. Boundless, 21 Jul. 2015. Retrieved 13 May. 2016 from https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/social-change-21/social-movements-140/relative-deprivation-approach-771-1936/

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Bank_Teller/Hourly_Rate

http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Nigeria