In the field of behavioural psychology, the jury is still out on why humans behave the way they do. Is it nature or nurture that causes a man to steal? Better put, if a man is a thief is it because the genes his parents gave him had a “stealing” chromosome or did he just grow up around thieves?
It’s a tough call to make, if you had twins and you put one in the US and the other in the Nigeria, would they behave the same? No, why? well the environment in the US is different than Nigeria, ok we can postulate that both factors; your genes (your family) and your environment plays a role in your behaviour and views on life. I however will have to vote that the environment where you are raised carries a greater percentage share in determining your behaviour.
A psychologist BF Skinner who introduced us to the term “conditioning”. Simply put conditioning is the process where you can be made to behave in a certain way through the application of an external pressure or circumstance or habit, I explain. A Nigerian is conditioned to jump a queue, once a Nigerian see a queue his mind automatically ask” how can I get ahead”, it does not matter if it’s an online queue to get an appointment date for Visa, a fuel line, or a supermarket queue, Nigerians hate queues, we have been conditioned over the years to hate queuing. Well think about it, do “bigmen” queue up?
Children also learn by observation, notice how your baby boy puts your phone to his ear and says “hello”, he can even tell a fake phone from a real phone. What the child, sees can influences his behaviour, that his environment. If he sees the governor doing “one way” with sirens, he will do “one way”, if the senator does not pay his taxes, he won’t pay his taxes also.
So let’s put all what we have together. We know that behaviour is part genes, part environment, we know that the environment can “hot wire” us to respond to situations in a predetermined manner, i.e. conditioning, we also know that we learn by observation.
Ok that done, if I asked you to describe to me how a Nigerian boy, what would you say?
First of all the boy would be illiterate, not innumerate, just illiterate. How do we know? the last NECO scores just released last month shows a general pass rate of just 10.7% (pass rate in some states was 5%). He would be illiterate because his government takes money from the education budget to build roads in Abuja. He would be an illiterate because there are no more teachers, Kalu where the teachers go? The govt is taking some to South Africa, Some are on strike, others are on "Nyger Sings" as judges, a professor make N753,549 a year, D banj make N10m in a week! Do the maths.
He would be aggressive, aggressive? How do you know that? You have to be aggressive to catch the only bus from Iyan Ipaje to Ikoyi by 4am every day, you have to be aggressive to get your baby to see a doctor in a govt run “free” clinic, you have to be aggressive to even cast your vote in a tiny LGA with 10,000 armed police and army men all around. You have to be aggressive to challenge a LASTMA official.
He would be an optimist, optimist? Please explain, only an optimist can hear that the budget for 2009 was only implemented by 25% as at November 09 and still believe the road to his village will be fixed before Christmas. Only an optimist can see Iwu as head of INEC and believe 2011 will be ok, only an optimist can believe we will have 6,000mw by December (there is a thin line between optimism and stupidity you know).
He would be an expert engineer, now I am lost, he is illiterate how can he be an engineer? Have you not seen 1970 Volvo’s still running in Aba? Have you not seen houses powered by truck batteries in Lagos? Have you not seen destroyed tyres “vulcanised” back to life in Kano?
He would probably want to be a kidnapper, senator or a footballer than a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Kalu what’s wrong with being a footballer? Nothing, I wanted to be Spider Man when I was 7. But when all the kids want to be footballers or actors just so they can feed their family, then you have a problem. His role models matters, if he sees a graduate, first class student from University of Ife, driving a state taxi cab, and he see a “exmilitant” earning N65,000.00 a month plus benefits for just chilling, which would he want to be?
He would be a quick learner, yes notice how quickly he learns how to email business letters to oyibos asking for 10% advance, all this without entering an economics or IT class. most telling he would learn that no one would ever call him to “eat” food on the family dinner table, rather his father will cook and take the food to his master bedroom to “eat” alone, it’s up to him to either “steal” food while it’s still on the fire, wait for his dad to finish “eating” and get the scarps or even “kidnap” the dad for a ransom of the food.
Kalu stop. So where does genes come in. My theory is this, under normal circumstance there is no difference between the Nigerian in the 1960’s and the Nigerian in 2009. Both Nigerians were born of the same “father” hence the same genes.
The Nigerians (1960 and 2009 models), was simply exposed to different environments, while the Nigerian in the 60’s saw oyibos giving him, roads, education, honest police and civil servants, he became conditioned to excellence and produced Wole Soyinka, Chike Obi and Ememgwali. He was a healthy, honest, educated, and organised Nigerian.
but the oyibos left and his new “father” gave him NEPA, INEC, Mobile Police, PDP, NNPC he became aggressive, illiterate, unruly, corrupted and angry and produced Iwu, Boy loaf, and Tafa. What a difference a “father” makes.
It’s our problem, we can fix it
