Another public enemy that is secretly competing with corruption that has
mindlessly crippled us is MEDIOCRITY. We all encounter it everywhere we go
in Nigeria, but we all endure it and shrug our shoulders and wait for a
miracle to eradicate it. It is a social danger, a cankerworm we must deal
with if we must smell development. On Tuesday, April 2, 2013, I published
a lead story in this newspaper Mediocrity overtakes Graft, wrecks Nigeria.
The story received some rave reviews.
I recall that it was a colleague, Ijeoma Nwogwugwu, editor of Thisday that
first hailed the story describing mediocrity as our major challenge that
has tentacles everywhere we go. The source of that story was an article by
a Lagos-based Dutch journalist and writer, Femke van Zeiji, fondly called
Funke. Her article on “mediocrity” that was trending then online had gone
so viral that I considered it newsworthy. The irresistible opening
paragraph of the article:
I used to think corruption was Nigeria’s biggest problem, but I’m starting
to doubt that. Every time I probe into one of the many issues this country
is encountering, at the core I find the same phenomenon: the widespread
celebration of mediocrity. Un-rebuked underachievement seems to be the
rule in all facets of society. A governor building a single road during
his tenure is revered like the next Messiah; an averagely talented author
who writes a colourless book gets sponsored to represent Nigerian
literature overseas; and a young woman with no secretarial skills to speak
of gets promoted to the oga’s office faster than any of her properly
trained colleagues…
I thought that was a profound construct by a foreigner on the new
competitor. After the publication and reviews in 2013, there were calls
here and there that it was a good article, a blueprint for productive
success. But again, not even the national orientation agency operatives
considered it as a subject to be pursued as public policy. The issue of
the celebration of mediocrity did not receive any attention again until
October 2015 in Abuja when a Nigerian Professor of English, Pius Adesanmi,
who heads an African Centre at a University in Canada, addressed it at the
annual symposium, The Platform by Pastor Poju Oyemade’s Covenant Christian
Centre. The man who said he was missing mediocrity, a trait he took away
from Nigeria’s work culture when he got to Canada noted angrily that
Nigerians should rise up against the spirit of mediocrity that has held us
hostage in the most populous black nation on earth. Again, the morning
after The Platform, no one remembered the scourge again.
There is too much room for ordinariness and near absence of excellence and
exceptionalism in our personal and public life. No nation can grow, no
one’s personal ministry can be recognized as a brand with the mindless
celebration of mediocrity. Let’s ban it.
For young ones, the context of mediocrity I am drawing attention to is
what common dictionaries define as the state of only medium quality, not
very good, average, banal. We can rename it: inferiority, ordinariness,
commonplaceness, poorness, unimportance, etc. The most powerful
description here is not very good. It is called average in business school
terms where it is treated as the opposite of excellence. When we talk of
mediocre performance, we mean acts that are average, inferior,
commonplace, insignificant, pedestrian, ordinary, so-so, run-of-the-mill…
At the common level, after the death of government technical schools (in
Nigeria) where students used to acquire skills such as woodwork, plumbing,
carpentry, block-laying and concreting, auto mechanics,
electrical/electronics fittings, we have been in trouble. Now in Nigeria,
even the electricity distribution companies do not have enough good
electricians to maintain installations of customers. In the building
industry, how do you get bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians,
furniture makers, tillers and PoP makers, etc.? The truth today is that
wise and rich builders procure most of these skilled workers from
neighbouring West African countries, notably, Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana,
Senegal, etc.. The reason is not far to seek: We parade one of the worst
skills gaps in the world with a population of about 170 million now. This
is a manifestation of mediocrity at all levels. In our country today, it
is difficult to get good mechanics that can handle modern cars. You have
to patronize all these callous auto companies that shave our heads in our
absence with atrocious bills: They don’t repair: they replace all parts.
This is a policy failure that keeps failing.
No one is addressing expediency of reviving our technical schools to deal
with mediocrity at some levels. The tentacles of mediocrity have reached
everywhere even our newsrooms. Now editors are suffering and smiling as
modern and very ‘educated’ but incorrigible reporters and writers continue
to churn out terrible copies that are beyond redemption. Where will
editors find exceptional sub editors who used to be quality control
officers in the newsroom? No one to transcribe interviews impeccably
anymore. You can’t appoint holders of Master’s degree in English as
proofreaders. Even when you listen to some Nigerian Professors speaking to
some issues at workshops, you will immediately know why some Universities
that are churning out a remarkable number of First Class graduates now are
merely producing a generation of mediocrities (not mediocre, please). In
the public service, even the retired permanent secretaries and directors
are very concerned that most of their successors cannot write good
memoranda and minutes. Most documents to even the business and diplomatic
communities from the public sector are written in poor grammar.
It is already noted, but there is no sufficient anger yet in any of our
leaders that we need to fix the broken walls of our education system at
all levels. That is really the starting point. You can’t address
mediocrity without fixing the foundation: educational institutions
including teachers’ training schools beyond meretricious level.
At the leadership level, we see mediocrity on all fours. Most heads of
government all over the world, head hunt excellent people to reduce
tension associated with mediocrity. They look for what Peter Drucker calls
“knowledge workers” to improve their brand equity. But not in Nigeria
where mediocrities are preferred so that our leaders can manipulate them
to do their bidding. Most leaders and governors in Nigeria prefer what
Benjamin Disraeli called a “cabinet of mediocrities”. As if he had Nigeria
in mind in his comments about Liverpool as recorded in a novel, Coningsby
(1844), Disraeli had mused about The Arch-Mediocrity who presided rather
than ruled, over this Cabinet of Mediocrities… Indeed, there have been
some “arch-mediocrities who are also presiding over a cabinet of
mediocrities” in Nigeria. When mediocrities lead mediocrities, what else
can we get apart from mega mediocrity?
But there is a sense in which we cannot blame our young people too much.
According to an author who specializes in workplace wellness, Mike Martin,
we cannot blame our young people for falling into the mediocrity trap. It
is a lesson that they have learned from us and only we as their adult
models can shift their thinking and behavior. It really does begin with
us. If we are going to move back from the brink of mediocrity, we have to
think, talk and act differently, and we must be angry about this now.
But what Femke, too should realize is that the military that midwived the
second republic (1979-1983) actually transferred a culture of mediocrity
to the new arch-mediocrities called Democrats now. According to the
records of primaries in 1978, there were six strong presidential
candidates in the then truly national party, the National Party of Nigeria
(NPN) including Joseph Tarka, Professor Iya Abubakar, Dr. Olusola Saraki,
Alhaji Maitama Sule, Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Adamu Ciroma. But at the
Casino Cinema, Yaba Lagos, convention venue of the Party then, there was
an eventual tie between Alhaji Shagari and Alhaji Sule. It was said then
that although the progressives in the Party preferred Alhaji Maitama
because of his sophistication, experience, and erudition. But the
moderates would have none of that as they preferred the less endowed
Alhaji Shagari. That was how the powers then mounted pressure on Maitama
to concede to Shagari. As we often say here whatever happened later to the
presidency of Shagari is left to history for judgment but the story is
well known.
From then and up and until now as Bishop Kukah has often noted, we have
been producing mediocre office holders but not leaders. The cleric and
scholar observed in 2012 that from the beginning of democratization, the
atmosphere has not been favourable for the erection of a
structure/platform (political parties) and the development of a process
and culture of leadership recruitment and discipleship…” This is the
system that has been producing all sorts of “executhieves”, “legislooters”
and “judicial rascals” from a pool of mediocrities, especially from the
second republic. If we jump the military juntas to 1999, we would see how
we have been celebrating democratic mediocrity in leadership recruitment.
The Abdusalami regime, an offshoot of the IBB-Abacha regime did not allow
the South West to choose an authentic presidential candidate. They
pardoned and released General Olusegun Obasanjo from prison and imposed
him on the South West and the nation.
In 2007 when it was time for Obasanjo to leave office, he too imposed a
mediocre process: He stopped Umaru yar’Adua from teaching in Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria. So, Yar’Adua was imposed on the North West and the
nation. And in 2007, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was satisfied as a governorship
candidate but was imposed on the nation as a vice presidential candidate
in a complex political shenanigan at the Eagle Square. The unprepared vice
presidential candidate from the Niger Delta was to be president for six
years…Never in the history of political leaderships have so many
mediocrities been so imposed on a people.
The result of 17 years of democratic mediocrity is what Femke reflected in
these lines: The hardest thing to do in Nigeria is to continue to realize
there is honour in achievement and pride in perfection…
The time has therefore come for us to speak out against the Russian word,
MEDIOCRITY. We all should develop a culture of anger towards it. There is
too much room for ordinariness and near absence of excellence and
exceptionalism in our personal and public life. No nation can grow, no
one’s personal ministry can be recognized as a brand with the mindless
celebration of mediocrity. Let’s ban it. But the starting point is serious
attention to quality in our education from primary to university level.