A Pipe Dream?… The Nigerian Mind of the Future

June 21, 2008 at 4:36 pm (thoughts - serious)

I was going through my inbox at some of my old messages and I stumbled on this reply to my bost of October last year here
from Mr. Emmanuel Ogebe, Esq who is like a senior brother to me for as long as I have been coherent and cerebral. I had planned to put it up then, but I didnt get around to. For the records, I should, so I have!
I am impressed that we have people who can think strategically like this for Nigeria moreso coming from a new Generation. The question is – will thinkers ever rule Nigeria? and secondly, will a new generation ever takeover?
We fought for democracy in that country and now criminals, crooks and hair-dressers are ruling/ruining us. This generation in power is one of the worst to rule on planet earth because they have no succession or transition plan. No leadership mentoring or generational grooming.

When I was a child and Obasanjo was President in his 30s they said “children are the leaders of tomorrow.” I had a child in my thirties and Obasanjo was President. What happened to tomorrow???
The young shall, nay, the young have GROWN but the old must GO! Otherwise the Nigerian mind shall wither until all our youth become Shakira, Shakira and other poetic and gyrating talents but never leaders.

Power never relinquishes without demand, someone once said. It never has and never will. We must ask our misleaders and misrulers to kindly take their seats and usher them out peacefully otherwise they will drive us to intellectual extinction in addition to our political irrelevance.

If you want to see how the world sees the Nigerian mind, look at the story below. No one from Africa has said a word because we do not have evidence to establish otherwise, from our own deeds.

NEW YORK (Oct. 25) – James Watson, famous for DNA research but widely condemned for recent comments about intelligence levels among blacks, retired Thursday from his post at a prestigious research institution.

Watson, 79, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York announced his departure a week after the lab suspended him. He was chancellor of the institution, and his retirement took effect immediately.

Watson shared a Nobel Prize in 1962 for co-discovering the structure of the DNA molecule. He is one of America’s most prominent scientists.

In his statement Thursday, Watson said that because of his age, his retirement was “more than overdue. The circumstances in which this transfer is occurring, however, are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired.”

Watson, who has a long history of making provocative statements, ran into trouble last week for remarks he made in the Sunday Times Magazine of London. A profile quoted him as saying that he’s “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.”

He said that while he hopes everyone is equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.” He also said people should not be discriminated against on the basis of color, because “there are many people of color who are very talented.”

Watson later apologized. But by then, London’s Science Museum had canceled a sold-out lecture Watson was to give there, and London’s mayor had branded the comments “racist propaganda.”

E. Ogebe, ESQ.
Washington’s #1 Special Legal Consultant on Nigeria
2003, 2004, 2005

Permalink 1 Comment