Prof,
Compliments. I may add that even the inability to provide ourselves with electricity is part of the failure of nation buliding in Nigeria. I was in the Onitsha main market on Monday to buy the made in Nigeria print (Abada Nigeria), but was shocked to find out that all the prints in the market are currently made in China. The traders asked me when last I came to the market, because Nigerian made prints became history more than 2years ago. All the factories that manufacture the local prints have closed down, some relocated to Ghana. I felt very sad. Check ou the way we drive, last week at Enugu, I saw people driving on the pedestrian walk way rather than queue up for the hold up to ease. Get to Lagos Ore Benin express way, the horrifying traffic holdup there is a result of the riotous driving style of our people. Each lane forms four lines blocking the way creating hell for everybody.Our students spend quality time learning how to hack into peoples account and cloning ATM cards instead of using that creativity for something useful. Kidnapping is now becoming an accepted way of life for the simple reason that we all want to live big without sweating. Our way of life does not contradict Watson's view, it validates it.
Nkolika
From: Ifedioramma E. Nwana <ienwana@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 11:55 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - How intelligent are Nigerians?
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 11:55 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - How intelligent are Nigerians?
I SYMPATHISE WITH KAYODE'S DILEMMA ON THIS TOPIC. A NUMBER OF US HAVE BEEN QUITE CONCERNED WITH THIS TOPIC. WE WOULD BE GLAD TO REJECT WATSON, BUT THE REALITY ON THE GROUND IN VERY CONFOUNDING. I HAVE JUST FINISHED JARED DIAMOND'S "GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL; THE FATE OF HUMAN SOCIETIES". HE CLAIMED THAT PEOPLE HITCHED ON THE INITIAL ADVANTAGES OF THEIR ECOLOGY TO MAKE THE PROGRESS THAT HAS PLACED THEM AHEAD OF OTHERS. BUT HE WAS NOT ABLE TO ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS RAISED TO EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCES IN HUMAN SOCIETIES.
ONE THING IS CLEAR TO ME; I CANNOT SAY THAT THE WHITES ARE MORE INTELLIGENT THAT THE BLACKS. I DID NOT STUDY OVERSEAS; AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN WHERE I READ AGRICULTURE IN THE EARLY 1960s I HAD A WHITE BOY IN MY CLASS WHO WAS NOT BEATING ME IN ANY OF THE SUBJECTS WE STUDIED.
THE TWO SAMPLE STATES; JAPAN AND CHINA, WHICH KAYODE CITED, REVERSED THEIR FORTUNE BY COPYING ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES WITH THE INTENT TO IMPROVE. THEY SUCCEEDED. WHEN WE COPY WE TEND TO WANT TO CHEAT AND WE FAIL. WE MUST COPY; THERE IS NO NEED TO REINVENT THE WHEEL BUT THERE CONTINUES TO BE THE NEED TO REALLY IMPROVEMENTS ON THE WHEEL. COPY THE IDEA OF THE WHEEL AND IMPROVE ON IT.
THE PROBLEMS IN NIGERIA ARE MYRIAD BUT I STILL HOLD THAT THE SOLUTION TO OUR TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT MUST START WITH AN IMPROVEMENT OF OUR ELECTRICITY SUPPLY. WITH ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF ELECTRICITY, OUR PEOPLE WILL BEGIN TO TRY MANY THINGS, FAIL ON MANY OCCASIONS AND SUCCEED IN VERY FEW THAT WOULD BECOME BREAKTHROUGHS IN THE WORLD. AFTER ALL WE HEAR ONLY OF THE SUCCESSES BY OTHER PEOPLE; NO BODY HAS CARED TO FIND OUT HOW MANY TIMES THEY HAVE FAILED BEFORE THE SUCCESS. THE GREAT THOMAS EDISON SAID IF YOU DID NOT SUCCEED ONE THOUSAND TIMES IN THE ATTEMPT TO DO SOMETHING, YOU HAVE NOT FAILED EVEN ONCE, YOU HAVE MERELY FOUND OUT ONE THOUSAND TIMES HOW NOT TO DO THAT THING. WHEN YOU DO IT DIFFERENTLY YOU MAY SUCCEED.
GIVE US ELECTRICITY AND THE CHANGE IN THE COUNTRY WILL BE DRAMATIC.
IFEDIORAMMA EUGEN-MARY NWANA
From: kayode ketefe <kayodeketefe@yahoo.com>
To: my group <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 19 December 2012, 23:48
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - How intelligent are Nigerians?
To: my group <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 19 December 2012, 23:48
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - How intelligent are Nigerians?
| How intelligent are Nigerians? KAYODE KETEFE The differential rate of development and accomplishments among human beings has often spawned the question of which of the races is more intelligent or the reverse question, which race is the least intelligent. Conventional assumptions has often placed the Caucasian race at the zenith of this cerebral endowments while others races have been assigned progressively lower notches in the intelligence scale with the Africans condemned to the lowest rung in this gradation. Although a convincing empirical research that unequivocally settles the connection between race and intelligence is yet to be undertaken or announced, some putative anecdotal social researches (All of which have generated heated debates and criticisms) seem to have been confirming the conventional stereotypes. It will be recalled that the renowned geneticist and Nobel Laureate, James Dewey Watson, released a bombshell in 2007 by ostensibly attributing to Africans low intellectual capacity borne of genetic inadequacies. Watson had been quoted as saying "I am inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa, because all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really. I hope that that everyone is equal, but people who have to deal with black employees find this not true" If this had been said by just any white man, it would simply have been dismissed as a ranting of a diseased mind, but Watson is a world acclaimed cell biologist, Nobel Laureate, a co-discoverer of the structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) in 1953 (With Francis Crick) A lot of people all over the world, including this writer, wrote articles in denunciation, describing Watson findings as having been fuelled by racism and bigotry. The core of my counter-argument then was that other races could have attained development for a number of reasons and that African backwardness was not traceable to any genetic dementia or intellectual inferiority, but was purely traceable to attitudinal intellectual complacency, or mental laxity. I still hold that theory, but I have started to feel progressively uncomfortable with it. How long are we going to lay claim to potential mental equality if we continue to do things the wrong way and other people continue to do theirs the right way? Would it not amount to self-delusion if we continuously keep failing on all the indices of wisdoms and nonetheless hold tenaciously to a theory that our actual performance does not matter? Looking at our society, our system could, in all honesty, not be said to have benefited much from quality thinking. Our education system is in shambles; we cannot generate our own electricity having to manage with a meager 4,400megawatts for a population 162 million when even South Africa with a population of 48.8 million generates more than 40,000 megawatts. We are the most profligate gas flaring nation in the world. Last year alone, Nigeria, flared over 460 billion standard cubic feet of gas estimated at over $2 billion.A country like Netherlands flares none of her gas, that is to say she has zero per cent rate of flaring! Fifty two years after independence, we cannot boast of a vibrant real sector, a fact which makes industrialisation a mirage. Majority of our graduates are graduating into unemployment, or in some cases criminality. Many Nigerians still kill one another almost on daily basis in the name of religion. Criminality with its attendant insecurity reigns with impunity. Yet you would often see the ruling class going about in flowing robes of agbada or babaringa, as if nothing is amiss! I don't know the last time Nigeria announced any breakthrough in any field of science and technology. In matter of intelligence, are we in the same league with the Japanese, Chinese, South Koreans or Indians? Intelligence rating is not something you measure on the basis of sympathetic, humane sentiments; it has to be objectively based on overt behaviours. There was a time when the Japanese were seen as just small yellow-skinned backward people, but not so any longer. The whole world now pays tribute to Japanese technological wizardry. There was a time the Chinese were seen as overpopulated, underdeveloped humanity who specialised in production of sub-standards goods, and cheap imitation of other people's technologies. But the story has changed today as the Chinese now rank among the forerunners in almost every field of human knowledge and accomplishments. When will our own transformation take place? Each time I pondered on our multifaceted problems I keep wondering if Watson had not been right after all! I don't claim as of yet to know the perfect answer to the starting question "How intelligent are Nigerians?" But I know that such question is not just to be settled by mere opinion. Scientific laws are there to be discovered, let us go after them, technological feats are there to be invented, let us invent them, laws of human relations based on sociological and anthropological truths and ideals are there to be evolved, let us identify and imbibe them. Knowledge has no respect for colour, if we are really as smart as we claim let us move forward in concrete ways. If we don't do these and keep lagging back, one hopes we will not one day apologise to Watson for deriding his postulation! |
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