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! |
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment