How do you avoid becoming mediocre when you are surrounded by mediocrity? Unfortunately, the only useful takeaway from Victor’s article is to run away. Which doesn’t help a lot. I just read this by @asemota and remembered someone who’s supposed to have rendered us a service since last week, and their excuse was that they were queuing for fuel. I have never wanted to ship out more than I did in those 30 seconds when I was processing that response. But some of us can’t or don’t want to ship out. What to do?
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Victor took the solution of so many. He got the hell up and got the hell out. And saved his sanity and happinness. For me having seen what Nigeria is about the past 5 years here, I do not blame him. Nigeria is a shithole designed and nurtured by a bunch of assholes.
Methinks where the diaspora and the Patriots got it wrong was investing in Nigeria over the past decade. They got in the way of Nigerias reckless spiral towards extreme poverty and hunger. Because given the wayward nature of Nigerians, a tight encounter with poverty and hunger would have made us change our ways. To be less of an arrogant, selfish, tribalistic and crookish bastard and more of a productive, honest, open minded, and cooperative citizen.
Victor’s solution is the easy way out.
Living in Nigeria can be crap but who’s going to fix it?
Living as a colony of the British was crap (at least for one’s self esteem) until some people decided to fix it. Living in 19th century cholera infested London was crap until some people decided to fix it.
Living in the segregated American South was crap until some people decided to fix it.
Let’s fix our country, and earn some respect from the people to whose countries we are fleeing like beggars.
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Nigerias problem is the asshole crookish untrustworthy nature of too many of its people. Everyone’s first instinct in Nigeria is to cheat, to lie, to steal. That’s abnormal and is why any business operating in Nigeria jacks it’s prices. They price in the horrible behavior of Nigerians. So MTN calls are the most expensive in Africa and give Nigerians shitty service. The hotels cost two times what they charge in Accra and Nairobi while remaining half empty. The KFCs price chicken like it’s caviar. Delta Airlines that used to have competitive pricing jacked their prices to absorb the Nigerian nuisance factor.
Again Nigerians better wake up to the fact that we cheat nobody but ourselves. Being good citizens requires good decorum, behavior and conduct. Nigerians have to replace the mad dash for money with a desire for quality living. Then you wouldn’t see people living in shithole Nigerian cities happy to drive fancy cars on bad roads that don’t have pavements or Street lights.
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Victor’s description of the current state at time=now is right but it doesn’t necessarily have to be so. Luckily, we live in an age where fewer people can generate a disproportionate impact at time=now+t.
Here’s a head-on answer to the question:
You escape the mediocrity by building/joining a healthy microcosm that is not mediocre.
Surround yourself with the highest quality [1] environment you can find - be it friends, coworkers, online forums, tv/movies etc.
Consciously increase the quality of your inputs by seeking out/surrounding yourself with better people, more conscious content and by continuing to reflect on the mistakes of your past selves.
If you actively do this, you will escape mediocrity (because your environment is now working for you).
And of course, you can’t worry about everyone else - just do your own quality in your own microcosm.
It’s simple, obvious and boring advice but it is still difficult. The war between mediocrity and quality is not won through analysis but through action and experience- it’s fought anew everyday in your head, in your home, in your job etc.
[1] - ‘Quality’ - a term for inner excellence (from book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”)
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Lovely writeup by @asemota. If our ogas like Victor Asemota are complaining so bitterly about the established system of mediocrity in Nigeria, then wetin me go do? Maybe hug transformer? Fortunately for me, I will never hug a transformer as an escape away from our mediocrity. However and unfortunately, I will never be able to escape our mediocrity. I will have to breath, eat, drink, sleep, wake up, and die with it (if things do not get better). Do you know why? Because I’m a Patriot. People like me are “cursed” to toil and endured with Nigeria come what may. I have a neighbour who doesn’t fail to remind me 10 times a day that Nigeria is a “hellhole” and that he can’t wait to “escape” to Canada. I wish him all the best, but no one needs to remind me of how terrible people and things are in Nigeria.
Talking about service excellence, I had to take a break from commenting on a design by a architect working for me on a project. So far they are over 300 comments to be implemented. Of course, he will complain when he receives the truck load of comments, but the sure thing is that the design has to comply with international-best practices. I will prefer to lose some profit margins to having my company associated with a sub-standard design.
Not two long ago, two architects wanted to quit a design job after I’ve accommodated and paid them over 50% of the agreed fees. And we were about 80% done with the work. Reason: project was taking too long. They were tired of the incessant reviews from the client and engineers. They were foregoing other jobs because of this project. Real unprofessional DMFs! The type you can only find in Nigeria.
Up till today, a seamstress is still with a shirt she was paid to make for me. Why did I even get involved with a seamstress? Well, she’s a friend and I know she’s talented and she said she could make one for me within 5 days. Guess what, It’s over 2 months now and just yesterday, she told me to have “patience.” That this was the reason she doesn’t do jobs like mine. Really? Did I force her to collect the job and money (full payment paid from day 1). She was stone-cold when she said it. A real DMF! The type you can only find in Nigeria.
We’ve not had public light for the past two months at Sangotedo but at the end of the month, Eko Electricity brings an estimated bill. The response to whatever complain is that if you don’t like it, go pay for a prepaid meter. And they don’t smile while saying it. Meanwhile, regulatory body says meter are free! Real DMFs! The type only Nigeria can produce.
The mediocrity here has a thousand ways of messing with your head. Luckily, most of us have developed a thick skin while continually hoping for the best.
I know intellectuals when I see one. They are “baked” it in!
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It’s a great post, though not really anything new. We all know of the myriad of problems Nigeria has. People have been fleeing the country for decades because of the very same problems he talks about, though running away and never looking back isn’t the solution as @techscorpion said.
I think cultural revolution will come when those who have left the country and have been exposed to the outside world bring knowledge and decency back into the country. If enough people do this, change will inevitably come.
I’ve said this in some other thread, it’s really a mentality thing. We’ve been trained to steal and take short cuts and copy other people’s work right from childhood, rather than lead and innovate and solve tough problems.
It’s almost like we were cursed or something…
Thanks @lordbanks! I am back again to Nigeria and this time I think I have figured out what our problem is. I was just writing another post about it with suggestions.
Our problems start from actually living in the Dark and Middle Ages. Other societies have transcended feudal systems but we seem to have regressed into it and are quite comfortable in it. There is such a high premium on providing seemingly basic services and products, because people who manage to overcome constraints to provide services, see themselves as Feudal Lords and customers as Serfs. It is an abusive relationship. The problem is with those constraints to creating ventures to serve, and they are not just created by people, they are “People”.
As I mentioned in that screenshot, it is a massive hostage taking operation. Success in Nigeria is sort of defined by how many hostages you can take or how well you elude the hostage takers with stealth and understatement.
I used the word “Transcendence” earlier and that it what must happen. Societies change and true progress comes when transcendence occurs. The greatest force for transcendence in societies has been “Technology”. From the Guttenberg Press to the Atomic Bomb, technology has changed societies for good. We may have benefited from the inventions of others but we have seen a situation where people take those inventions and use it for further hostage taking as well.
Hostage taking is also very common in local tech. People don’t just build walls and moats to protect businesses and models, they use the Hun approach. They ravage, pillage and take hostages while collaborating with government or using overabundant resources. They kill upstarts who challenge them with savagery and impunity. All of that has to and will change when we realize that Feudal lords are in the minority. They are the few, we are the many. We are Legion.
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Go to ilupeju there are many indians living there…
Go to ikeja there are many asians living there.
Go to the island, there are many foreigners living there.
As Nigerians are fleeing out of the country there are foreigners (illegal and legal) fleeing into the country…
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There’s mad dash for money in every country…
That’s not mediocrity that’s laziness and breach of contract.
There’s nothing special in leaving the country… The internet is a very good tool for acquiring knowledge.
You’re just another Lagos hater and now you’re back in the same Lagos and Nigeria…
The difference between Nigeria and developed countries is that developed countries finance and sponsor projects and they see those projects through, developed countries are run by private individuals who work behind the scenes and control the government.
while Nigeria is run by people with poverty mentality who believe they are better than others and try their best to control others…
Nigeria was fine until Ironsi decided to abolish regional system of government which I believe was part of a plan to make sure the ijaws and the Western region didn’t get too rich and powerful…
“That the US seems better than Nigeria is not because we have angels in America…we just have devils that watch each other” - Walter Omowale Carrington, Former US Ambassador to Nigeria
I agree with your point about the commoditisation of time in Nigeria. I think a simple solution (for at least the primary constituents of this forum) is to
- Diversify into products by reducing consulting services and invest in products.
- Diversify across markets ie. build a SaaS that can be sold online to customers around the world instead of just Gtbank.
Both approaches will reduce your dependence on any one client, cut out time-wasters, and I daresay, will improve your quality of life.
From experience, nothing beats sitting in your couch at 11am on a weekday, still wrapped in your towel, and everyday somebody brings cheques to your home, or in this cashless economy, getting credit alerts every hour. That’s when you know that living in Nigeria can be sweet.
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Nigeria was fine until the British left.
This is one of the wisest and smartest things I’ve read on radar since its inception and from a Nigerian since I started lurking on the internet. I realized this years ago, many Nigerians don’t have this type of mentality.
most Nigerian programmers would rather work for someone or complain like Nigeria is a country where nothing works.
Be careful of the narrative fallacy while discussing Nigeria:
The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently, forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship upon them. Explanations bind facts together. They make them all the more easily remembered; they help them make more sense. Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding.
—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan
I think the most accurate way to demonstrate what’s wrong with Nigeria is to correct some aspect- the cure proving that you rightly diagnosed the sickness. Our escapist/fatalist stories may be hindrances themselves.
The way out is through 
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Thanks for the nice but undeserved comment 
