"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. Unrebuked underachievement
seems to be the rule in all facets of society. A governor building a
single road during his entire tenure is revered like the next Messiah;
an averagely talented author who writes a colorless 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.
Needless to say the politician is probably hailed by those awaiting
part of the loot he is stealing; the writer might have got his
sponsorship from buddies he has been sucking up to in hagiographies paid
for by the subjects; and the young woman’s promotion is likely to be an
exchange for sex or the expectancy of it. So some form of corruption
plays a role in all of these examples.
But corruption per se does not necessarily stand in the way of
development. Otherwise a country like Indonesia—number 118 on
Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, not that far
removed from Nigeria’s 139—would never have made it to the G-20 group of
major economies. An even more serious obstacle to development is the
lack of repercussions for underachievement. Who in Nigeria is ever held
accountable for substandard performance?
Since I came here, I have been on a futile search for a stable
internet connection that does what it promises. I started with an MTN
FastLink modem (I consider the name a cruel joke), and then I moved on
to an Etisalat MiFi connection (I regularly had to keep myself from
throwing the bloody thing against the wall), and now I am trying out
Cobranet’s U-Go. I shouldn’t have bothered: equally crap. And everyone
knows this. They groan and mutter and tweet about it. But still, to my
surprise, no one calls for a class-action suit against those deceitful
providers.
A one-day conference I attended last year left me equally puzzled.
Organization, attendance and outcome left a lot to be desired, if you
ask me. But over cocktails, after the closing ceremony, everyone
congratulated each other over the wonderful conference—that started two
hours late, of which the most animated part was undeniably lunch, and in
which not a single tangible decision had been made. This left me
wondering whether we had attended the same event.
I thought these issues to be unrelated at first, but gradually I came
to see the connection. Nigeria is the opposite of a meritocracy: you do
not earn by achieving. You get to be who and where you are by knowing
the right people. Whether you work in an office, for an enterprise or an
NGO, at a construction site or in government, your abilities hardly
ever are the reason you got there. Performing well, let alone with
excellence, is not a requirement, in fact, it is discouraged. It would
be too threatening: showing you’re more intelligent, capable or
competent than the ‘oga at the top’ (who, as a rule, is not an overachiever either) is career suicide.
It is an attitude that trickles down from the very top, its symptoms
eventually showing up in all of society, from bad governance to bad
service to bad craftsmanship.
Where excellence meets no gratification, what remains to be
celebrated is underachievement. That is why it is not uncommon to find
Nigerians congratulating each other with substandard results. It is
safer to cuddle up comfortably in shared mediocrity than to question it,
since the latter might also expose your own less than exceptional
performance. Add to this the taboo of criticizing anyone senior or
higher up and it explains why so many join in the admiration of the
emperor’s new clothes.
I have been writing this column for the last year, and after ten
months I realized my angles were getting more predictable and my pieces
less edgy. I figured newcomers do not remain newcomers forever and
therefore decided to round up the ‘Femke Becomes Funke’ series this
month, a year after it started. Ever since I announced the ending,
tweeps have been asking me to change my mind and in comments on the
columns and through my website I get songs of praise that make me feel
my analyses of Nigerian society are indispensable. If I had no sense of
self-criticism, I might be tempted to reconsider my decision to
discontinue the series and start producing second-rate articles. Who
would point this out to me if I did?
The hardest thing to do in Nigeria is to continue to realize there is
honor in achievement and pride in perfection. I imagine the frustration
of the many Nigerians who do care for their work, who take pride in
their outcomes and who feel the award is in a job well done. When you
know beforehand that excellence will not be rewarded, you are bound to
do the economically sane thing and limit your investments to
accomplishing the bare minimum. This makes Nigeria a pretty cumbersome
place for anyone striving for perfection".
Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl
Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl
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