The Nation Newspaper

Tag: mindset

  • Mindset

    One course I loved so much while in the university was comparative economic development. To date, I’m still intrigued whenever I undertake research into why some nations develop and others have perpetually remained basket cases. Why, for instance, would nations that share common borders be poles apart in development like the United States and Mexico? Why do African countries remain at the bottom rung of the development chart?

    I have read countless books on development and followed most of the theories of underdevelopment propounded in earlier years, but the thorny issue of why Nigeria, and most African countries, have remained underdeveloped despite the enormous natural resources in these countries has remained a “mystery.” For a while now, I have shifted my focus from most of the theories propounded to look at the simple – yet not so simple – matter of the mind. Should we hold our mindset responsible for the way we are or our culture?

    As I change focus toward our mindset – which I feel is very critical if we are to make positive headway – I realise that people tend to think of ability and intelligence in one of two ways.  Those with a fixed mindset generally believe that ability and intelligence are relatively fixed at birth and little can be done to change them. Those with a growth mindset however believe that the brain is malleable throughout one’s lifetime, thus ability, intelligence, and work capacity can significantly grow.

    There is this all-pervading mindset that we cannot get an     ything done until we get “outside” help. The ‘Asian Tiger’ economies in the 1990s looked inwards changed their mindset by challenging the status quo and were able to place their economies on the pedestal of growth. I am gradually beginning to assume that our major problem is a fixed mindset.

    A fixed mindset person sees challenges as a threat to their identity while a growth mindset person sees their intelligence and ability as separate from their identity as a result; they see difficulties as learning opportunities. This means in essence that a fixed mindset shy away from anything that requires them to grow and change, which is untenable in today’s complex environment.

    If I had a single psychological metric to assess the effectiveness of leaders, it would be mindset. While a fixed mindset is associated with the inability to change and adapt over time, a growth mindset can be an indicator of one’s ability to learn and evolve. Some of the challenges we are grappling with today were not there fifteen years earlier. We only read about terrorism in books or by watching cable television, but today, we have been battling it for close to ten years now. The spate of industrial kidnappings and banditry was also alien to us ten years ago, but today they remain an ever present danger.

    The impact of these negative trends is that development has taken the back bench. Enormous resources needed to positively impact the economy and the welfare of citizens are being channeled to deal with the security challenges staring at us daily. Just like the president mentioned some weeks back, kidnapping and banditry has become an industry for some people.

    In her seminal book, “Mindset,” Carol Dweck shows how mindset impacts both how we do things as well as our potential. Dweck differentiates between people who have fixed versus growth mindsets; a distinction, she maintains, that impacts how we navigate life and especially how we deal with achievement and failure.

    As Dweck explains, “Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts). This is because they worry less about looking smart and they put more energy into learning.”

    Mindsets are also impacted by one’s upbringing. While children’s mindsets are more malleable, anyone can change. As Dweck says, “Your mind is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more it grows.” But how can one exercise their mind?

    First, we need a clear sense of our orientation to both rigidity and growth. Next, we need to understand what triggers us towards growth – when we are comfortable taking risks, trying new things, and accepting new challenges. Conversely, we need to look honestly at what triggers us to revert to a fixed mindset.

    There are a lot of variables that impact the mindset we ultimately embrace. What Dweck makes clear is that people who embrace a growth mindset and do so more often are also more likely to find ways to break out of tired old habits and more likely to tap into flow. Why? Because when you’re in a growth mindset, you’re always looking for solutions. You’re open to change. When you adopt a growth mindset, you’re already open to the idea that there may be more than one way to tackle a problem.

    Even though they did not mention mindset specifically, the 2012 book, “Why Nations Fail,” co-authored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) economist Daron Acemoglu and the Harvard University political scientist James A. Robinson, argues that the key differentiator between countries is “institutions.” Nations thrive when they develop “inclusive” political and economic institutions, and they fail when those institutions become “extractive” and concentrate power and opportunity in the hands of only a few.

    Four years ago, I met Professor Robinson in Lagos where he delivered the 70th commemorative lecture of Wema Bank on “Why Nations Succeed.” In the lecture, Robinson highlighted salient points on why Nigeria is where she is today. From his perspective, he said Nigeria is poor because it has suffered from a long history of “extractive economic and political institutions.” This, according to him, are part of deeply rooted historical processes which reveal the slow development of centralised political entities compared to Eurasia.

    He raised two salient and age old questions: Why is it that some parts of the world are much richer and more successful economically than other parts of the world? What can poor countries do to make themselves richer? To answer these simple, yet difficult questions, he proposed a theory based on differences in economic and political institutions. “Institutions” are defined as the rules (both formal – written laws and the constitution – and informal – like social norms) that structure economic, political and social life and generate different patterns of incentives, rewards, benefits and costs.

    Nigeria is partly where she is today because of the “negative institutional legacies of colonialism.” Colonialism, he stated, also created an arbitrary state system which has led to political conflicts, instability and dictatorship. Colonial authorities also created “gate-keeper states which were only interested in ruling rather than in developing the countries and these have left a path dependent legacy.” The political authoritarianism of the colonial state is therefore a direct source of the authoritarianism that has plagued Nigeria and Africa. Colonialism thus created and shaped identities and cleavages in dysfunctional ways that still plague us to date.

    The “extractive political institutions” that was in place for a better part of our post-independence period took the form of military dictatorship which led to a weak state unable to control violence as is evident with the Boko Haram insurgency and the spate of kidnappings and armed banditry. This weak state is at its best creating monopolies for the politically connected. But as expected, the result has been economic decline.

    So what does he proffer to change the tide? The broader evidence is the need to move towards “inclusive” institutions. “Our framework emphasizes that this is not a technocratic economic problem, this is a political problem. Focus first on developing inclusive political institutions and the economics will sort itself out. All countries which now have inclusive institutions historically had extractive institutions. How did they change them? We emphasize the emergence of a broad coalition which pushes for and underpins inclusive institutions.” This, to me, can only happen when a growth mindset is activated.

  • Do Nigerian leaders read and what’s their development mindset?

    One of the unfortunate dimensions of the Nigerian postcolonial malaise is the terrible statistics concerning adult illiteracy in Nigeria. The 2018 literacy rate puts adult illiteracy at 38% or about 65 million Nigerians. And with the out-of-school figure standing at 11 million children, there is an approximate total of 70 million Nigerians who lack the fundamental ingredients not only to make their lives worthwhile, but to also contribute meaningfully to national development. Everyone agrees that a state’s development prospect—a state’s capacity to generate infrastructural development—depends essentially on the dynamics of human capital development it is able to facilitate. Add 38% illiterate Nigerians to the over 60% unemployed and unemployable youths, and we instantly see the enormity of Nigeria’s development challenge.

    And the narrative becomes gloomier when we consider the lamented and lamentable diminishing reading culture in Nigeria. In a 2017 survey by the World Culture Score Index that monitors the world reading culture, India tops the list with an average of 10.42 reading hours per week, followed by Thailand with 09.24 hours per week. China came third with 8 hours per week. Only Egypt and South Africa were the two African countries listed, Nigeria is nowhere on the list. Several reasons have been adduced for the low reading culture—low budgetary allocations for the development of functional libraries, the influence of social media and the new technologies, lack of adequate reading materials, poor or inadequate readership promotion programmes, inept and poorly trained personnel, and even corruption and poverty.

    Reading is inextricably tied to intelligence and cognition, and the capacity for analytic and critical reflection and problem solving. Self-conscious awareness, emotional intelligence, mental health, pure reading delight, experiential upliftment, acquisition of social grace, empathy, and so many other skills associated with reading are all significant not only for mental progress but also for socioeconomic development. I suspect that this is the key reason for racial slur that “blacks do not read.” Most of us have heard or read that statement that if you want to hide something important from a black man, the perfect hiding place for such insights and ideas is inside the pages of books. And since the black man does not read, you are guaranteed the safest hiding place! This is a racial reasoning, no doubt, but does it tell us something fundamental about our postcolonial condition?

    Let me identify a dimension of the reading culture that I consider very fundamental. This is the capacity or otherwise of the leadership of any state to read books. At the end of his second term in office, the reading list of President Barack Obama was published. No one would ever believe that the two-terms that were filled with partisan worries and racial troubles would ever leave sufficient space for a black president to develop a reading and play lists. Obama did, and the list spans history, philosophy, memoirs, literary fiction, sociology, current affairs, political science, and many more. Obama devoured authors as popular as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Melville Herman, V. S. Naipaul, Chinua Achebe, Nelson Mandela, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chimamanda Adichie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and many more. He read such incredible books like The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Invisible Man, Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind, Harry Porter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, The Soul of Black Folks, How Democracies Die, The New Geography of Jobs, Basketball and Other Things, Shakespeare’s tragedies, and many others.

    Now, it has not been established that there is a direct proportional relationship between the quality of a leader’s reading list and the governance quality of a state. Yet, it is safe to say that a reading leader would likely be a good leader. Reading opens the mind to a variety of human experiences that have the possibility of influencing one’s thoughts, decisions, plans and perceptions. Imagine a leader of a third world state reading about the development experience of Lee Kwan Yew or the turbulent presidency of Barack Obama? Imagine a president in any of the African states reading the bestseller, Why Nations Fail? or Mandela’s A Long Walk to Freedom.

    Thus, we can ask: do Nigerian leaders read? This question can be tracked historically. I have never read anywhere the reading list of any Nigerian president. One could say, with some level of certainty, that former president Olusegun Obasanjo was an intellectual. The same could be said for Nnamdi Azikiwe. Otherwise, what has characterized leadership in the Nigerian political space is an extreme and fixated sense of parochialism colored by ethnicity, religion and selfish impulses of the worst type defined by a clientelist or prebendal elememts. In Nigeria, we care more about the religious and ethnic affiliations of leaders and leaders-to-be rather than their intellectual and development quotients. We elect leaders based on their sense of political correctness or the capacity to distribute largesse. We are not bothered about the kind of mindset a prospective leader is bringing into critical offices in the land.

    There are two types of mindsets that have been identified, each with serious implications

  • Tackling our mindset

    For over twenty years now, one incident – among others – has been etched in my memory. At the heat of the perennial and acute fuel scarcity that was the norm in Jos and other parts of the country in the 1990s, my cousin and I were on the queue at a filling station when two young boys passed by lost in deep discussion.

    What these little boys were discussing in Hausa shocked us. “He’s a fool,” one of them said; “He doesn’t know how to embezzle money…”  We couldn’t believe what we just heard. After exchanging quick glances, we called them to inquire what brought up such topic. With a straight face one of them said: “It’s Baba Joel, it’s been over eight months that he was appointed a Sole Administrator of a local government and he’s still staying in the old house in our poor neighbourhood. Baba Hassan who was appointed earlier left in less than a month to Rayfield and later built his own house.” For those who know Rayfield in Jos, it’s the playground of the rich and elite.

    By our reckoning, the boys were about nine years old. Their mindset, at that very young age, goes to show the impact negative societal values can have on our mindset. These young boys have probably been raised on the flawed belief that once an individual is appointed into a government position he has the licence to start living large.  The fact that “Baba Hassan” transited from a pauper to a “man of means” made the boys believe that’s the best path to tread.

    Unfortunately, this is the mindset of a large proportion of the population. It is a deep-seated view which makes great meaning when you’re privy when politicians visit their constituency. Once elected, the people expect their representatives to solve all their problems. It may sound funny and ludicrous, but some go to the extent of requesting their elected officials to marry wives for them and take care of their offsprings thereafter!

    The big challenge, which we are not even tackling, is how to change this mindset. Earlier this month, the Army spokesman, Brigadier General Sani Usman revealed that some parents donate their daughters to Boko Haram for suicide missions. He appealed to religious, traditional and community leaders, and other Nigerians in the North-east, to dissuade people from such indoctrination.

    He said the appeal became necessary following revelations by some intercepted female suicide bombers during interrogations. “It was discovered that most of these hapless minors were ‘donated’ to the terrorist sect by their heartless and misguided parents and guardians, as part of their contribution to the perpetuation of the Boko Haram terrorists’ dastardly acts against the Nigerian society and humanity. The acts of these parents and guardians are not only barbaric, but condemnable and unacceptable.”

    If this is not a mindset thing, I don’t know what else to call it. Usman’s appeal that Nigerians have a responsibility and obligation to collectively mould “our children and wards and define a better future for them rather than condemning them to death by the criminal Boko Haram terrorists and their sympathisers through suicide bombings” should be embraced by well meaning citizens.

    It should be clear by now that beyond the visible leadership challenge we have as a nation, a critical challenge is the Nigerian himself. As we seek solutions to our leadership challenge, we should, at the same time, be seeking solutions on how to change the mindset of the average Nigerian in several ways.

    What, for instance, will be going through the mind of a parent who would be callous, wicked and insensitive enough to “donate” his daughter as a suicide bomber? What is going through the mind of a ritualist that kills a fellow human being just because he wants to get rich, or make others rich? What is going through the mind of the kidnapper who kills his victim after collecting the ransom money? What is going through the mind of a traditional ruler who gives a chieftaincy title to a well-known criminal? What is going through the mind of a religious leader who fails to question the source of a large sum of money donated to his place of worship? I can go on and on.

    The average Nigerian’s greatest limit is his own mind. What he thinks is possible and what he thinks isn’t possible. A man’s mind and therefore his mindset is his greatest indicator on the quality of life he chooses to live. His circumstances, his environment, everything can be overcome with the power of his mind. Does this mean that it’s easy? No, not at all; nothing worth doing is easy. This, to me, is where the critical challenge lies. Why would a group of people continue to vote for the same set of predatory politicians they know would further pauperise them?

    There have always been threats and less than ideal situations in our society. Nothing ever goes perfectly even in the best of times. However, regardless of whatever situation some societies have found themselves in they have found the strength to overcome and come out better for it. Whether it was war, economic depression, ethnic tension, genocide etc there are men and women, who through courage and boldness have galvanised others to overcome challenges. The people of Houston, Texas in the United States are currently encouraging and supporting each other after a devastating flood.

    There’s no doubt that Nigerians are one of the most resourceful and resilient people on earth, we can simply soak anything in, despite how painful it may be. But one area we continue to fail is in the area of the mindset. Why would an individual collect N1, 000 to join a rented crowd to “protest” in support of a corrupt politician? Agreed, there may be “hunger in the land,” but why not brace the “hunger” and keep your integrity intact?

    This is where I challenge civil society organisation to take up the challenge by addressing the mindset of the average Nigerian. People have been taught that they are poor victims and should be bitter and whine and complain rather than fix things. But this isn’t going to solve problems. I have seen communities rise up collectively to fix a road government has neglected. Such communities just try to find a way around a common problem.

    When people adapt the mindset of victims they become powerless and become things to be acted upon as they lose their will to fight and act by themselves. A victim mindset is cancerous and should never be tolerated. Whining about how things are and how they are supposed to be – like we do in Nigeria – doesn’t solve anything. It has rather been disempowering and building a deep chasm between us.

    The mind is the source of life; how it is treated leads to the quality of your life we live or choose to live. If gotten in check most things fall into place. Take a good look at some of the incredible technological advancements that have been made in the last decade and you’ll see the awesome power of the mind in play. From the smartphone you’re probably reading this article on to other innovation, the mind of someone conceived it. From indication, we would see more of such innovations.

    Already, country after country have set dates in which only electric cars would be sold, this ranges from 15-20 years’ time. I have yet to see any response from our policy makers. What will happen to our oil if fossil fuels are no longer relevant? The world is moving fast seeking alternative renewable energy while we continue to depend on the vagaries of the volatile international oil market to determine our future.

    The Mind is the master, our focus should be clear: attaining the right mindset. Without conquering the mind we will always live at the level we are. We will never rise to the level of greatness and fulfill our potentials. There’s so much negativity, rage, bitterness, hatred and anger in the land; and this has poisoned our society. Most of us have a fixed mindset when what we need is a growth mindset which gives us an optimistic outlook and a belief that great possibilities will lead to great things.

  • Bugaje’s mindset

    Bugaje’s mindset

    •His view on Law of the Sea is too dangerous for comfort

    The exuberance exhibited by Dr. Usman Bugaje at the meeting of some prominent Leaders and Elders of Northern Nigeria, in Kano, last week, for which he received a standing ovation, is completely misguided. Dr. Bugaje had in reckless excitement claimed that: ‘whatever mileage you get in the sea according to the United Nations law of the sea is a measure of the land mass that you have, that is what gives you the mileage into the sea and the land mass of the country that gives that long 200 nautical miles or more into the ocean is because of the 72% of the land mass of this country, which is the north”.

    Obviously, Dr. Bugaje’s mindset is predicated on a classical ultra-dependency syndrome on the oil mineral resources, which is principally concentrated in the Niger Delta area and its continental shelf. In our view, it is the mindset that is at the root of the underdevelopment of Nigeria, particularly its northern part. It is also a fraudulent sense of entitlement, which historically has undermined robust economic activities across our country, as it engenders more effort on the sharing of the petro dollars from the hydro-carbon resources of the Niger-Delta, in place of labour. The dangerous consequence of the ascendancy of the Bugaje’s mindset is a rent economy and the de-industrialisation of the country.

    Indeed, Dr. Bugaje’s reference to the land mass as the determinant of the Exclusive Economic Zone of a state under International Law is hogwash. His thesis is also ant ethical to the fundamental principles of federalism. Perhaps Dr. Bugaje needs to read the history of how nations arrived at the choice of 200 nautical miles as the exclusive economic zone of states and also 200 nautical miles as the continental shelves of states, to understand the historical forces that were at play.

    Similar forces are also in context at the municipal level. An understanding of our national struggles will help him and those who think like him, to appreciate the historical imperatives that led to the proviso to section 162(2) of the 1999 constitution. For Bugaje and his ilk, it is important that they appreciate that the historical imperatives that led to that provision on derivation in the 1999 constitution may have informed the historic intervention of the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to stem the crisis.

    So, to attempt to deny these historical facts is to harbour an ultra-dangerous mindset, which is clearly detrimental to the country’s well-being. If Dr. Bugaje claims that the Niger Delta states have no claim to resources accruing from Nigeria’s Exclusive Economic Zone, has he pursued to ask himself, whether the unity of Nigeria is cast in marble. Indeed, does Bugaje not realise that if his misbegotten argument is further stretched, then the people of the Niger Delta region could in similar warped reasoning claim exclusive ownership of their continental belt? To show the misconception in Bugaje’s logic, we ask, on what basis is he referring to a political entity called ‘the North’ with a 72% land mass?

    As far as we know, the Northern region, as a contiguous political entity ceased to exist in 1967, with the creation of 12 states in the country. So, to attempt to use a legally and politically fictional ‘North’ as a basis to pursue a self-serving agenda is condemnable and must be deprecated by all right- thinking Nigerians. What Nigeria needs are salutary mindsets which will help create common national ethos founded on patriotism. So, Dr. Bugaje and those who are excitable like him must appreciate that more than ever before, our country needs statesmen, not scaremongers.

  • Sometimes, it’s about your mindset

    YOU must have noticed that confident people seem to get more confident in whatever skills or talent they possess. The same can be said about people who are optimistic and you discover that their level of optimism helps to discover and rediscover hidden potentials in their lives. Of course, the same applies to people who believe in luck to an extent. It’s almost like a universal magic. The more we expect things to go well for us in our career, business and other spheres of life, the better they go.

    That naturally opens you to the power of positive thinking. Conversely, you also find that people who dwell more on negatives are boxed into a corner this way. This same rule applies to our relationship and the outcome we expect from the one you adore. For a number of great minds who end up in great long-term relationships, you discover that they made it because they put in their best and believed strongly that it was going to work out well.

    It was not just because they were the best candidates for the emotional job but they were determined to get to the end of the emotional tunnel, no matter the odds on the way. Obviously, they didn’t also have the rules on their fingertips. They got through the emotional corridors with attractive partners just because they had a positive mindset. In any relationship, negative feelings are bound to come up. That’s a given. But how you handle those emotions determines the kind of experience you create in the relationship. If your emotions own you early on, you probably won’t be able to talk to him or date in a fun and spontaneous way that men crave and that builds attraction.

    Instead of exploring the potentials and prospect, we usually look the other way. Here, what you discover are issues that make our minds to imagine the worst possible outcomes for dating and relationship situations. This pushes all the wrong buttons and gets us all nervous and upset which, of course, creates distance in relationships.

    On the other hand, when you continuously strive to adopt a positive mind set in a relationship and create fun, positive experiences in the relationship, then the one you love and cherish will start to see you as a positive aspect of his or her life.

    If you want to have a conscious relationship and you want to enjoy the incredible feeling that comes from being able to stay close and connected with the man in your life – even during the tough times or bumps in the road – then you MUST learn how to “own” your emotions in situations with men, and communicate them in a way that uses their power to benefit you and your relationship.

    Your emotions and how you communicate them have tremendous power. They have the power to instantly reconnect you and a man, and they have the power to push him away in no time flat. When you don’t take the time to process emotions and put them into perspective, then the feelings you share would have a very different effect on your partner. Instead of achieving your heart’s desire, you may just be getting negative vibrations all the time. If he doesn’t call you back right away, imagine that he is freaked out with his own life and schedule and make it mean that when he finally does talk to you, he’s going to be even MORE interested because it took you so long to catch up with each other.

    If he tells you he’s not ready for a relationship right now because of his past, realise that, first of all, he’s feeling that way because he really likes you and has had to think about being in a relationship because his feelings are so strong. On the other hand, he may just be scared of his deep feelings for you and doesn’t know how to deal with that yet. But as soon as he figures it out for himself, he’ll miss you and want you, and you don’t have to be there waiting around for him to grow up. There’s nothing wrong with you or how you are. And it’s great that you got to see this problem of his early on, and that it’s his to deal with.

    One of the best ways to do this is through communication and appreciating the other party in the relationship. While it’s fairly easy to practice maintaining a positive mood when you’re by yourself and nobody is pushing your buttons, what happens when you’re relating to a man and he’s bringing his own set of ideas and feelings to the table? You must know what to do, understand how to handle any tension that comes up and how to relate to him in a way that will cause his attraction for you to grow.