IF WE BUILD EMPIRES OF THE MIND WE WILL OVERCOME HARD TIMES AND BE GREAT.

a model picture of an empire

If we build empires of the mind, we will overcome recession and become great

It was Winston Churchill that once said “that the empires of the future will be the empires of the mind”.

Churchill, history has it said these words in a speech he gave at a commencement ceremony at Harvard in September 9th, 1943, as a message of hope and peace for America and Britain...

It would, of course be lamentable if as leaders in our own rights, charged with the duty of leading this great nation in this grievous and stubborn war against incessant economic turmoil that often plagued our nation, especially in recession, to allow our minds and energies to continue to dwell on issues and subjects that cannot deliver, much less propel us towards achieving our desired goal of a developed nation.

Like Winston Churchill, I have come to give us a message of hope and peace of mind, knowing though we walk through the valley of the shadow of economic and sometimes political turmoil, we still can become great.

The mind is the engine room of the man. Take the mind of a successful man and put it in an unsuccessful man, the unsuccessful man would become successful. Why? Because the mind determines the outcome of a mans life.

The words of Sir Winston Churchill with regards to the empires of the mind building future empires are already fulfilled in so many ways. Consider the tech genius, Mark Zuckerberg who recently visited Nigeria. Consider the Steve Jobs, The Bill Gates, The Elon Musk, and The Jack Ma of this world among others who have created great wealth out of their minds, and you would agree with me, that the word of this great British Prime minister has come to past.

Empires of the old were built by great nations with great wealth, like the old Roman Empire, the British Empire and so on. These great minds mentioned above combined have a total worth net that is more than most empires of the old or continents today. Mark Zuckerberg’s total worth net I reliably gathered is more than the Nigerian budget.

A speaker once said that, if we take the people in Nigeria to Singapore and brings the people in Singapore to Nigeria, within five years Nigerian will turn to Singapore and Singapore will turn to Nigeria. I totally agree with him. The difference between a country like Singapore and Nigeria is not because it’s outside of Africa, but because of the mindset of the people there. After all we have South Africa in Africa, and we know the secret behind South Africa's development is the mindset of the people who were once in charge of the government and who still are in charge of the economy.

To get Nigeria and indeed any Africa nation for that matter to meet her full potential, the people must have a mind shift. The fact that we are known as people who are corrupt is not because we are blacks, or exist in Sub Sahara, no, but because of a mindset inherited from our forebears and institutionalized by our leaders in different social economic spheres, most importantly our education system.

The system of education we have in Nigeria, cum Africa may never set us free from our plights, for the simple fact that it lacks the ability to challenge our minds critically and bring us to the place of asking rational questions.

Take a boy from UK and one from Nigeria, put them in a room to watch a movie and ask them after watching the movie to tell you what they learnt, you would be amazed at the difference in answer you will get from the same people who watched the same movie.

The Nigeria boy will tell you something like this “ uncle I learnt that we are not supposed to lie”, while the UK boy will say something like “ is the film a fiction or true life story, because that will decide my answer"

The Nigerian educational system is more like a copy and paste kind of system. In our schools, during exams, students are usually expected by the teachers to write exactly what they teachers taught and not necessarily what they think or deduced about a subject or concept. This is the main reason students carry notebooks into exam halls, and why handouts are mandatory in our higher institutions.

Unlike the Uk and the west including Singapore we used earlier as example, it is normal for students to ask their teachers questions and so they group up asking questions based on what they think or feel about a concept. We don’t do that here. The training not to ask questions begins right from our homes, where traditionally it is wrong to question an older person.

Notice that this system of home training which incidentally found its way into our education system is today institutionalized and promoted by our leaders to perpetually keep us under their control, for the fear they would lose their relevance and control if they allow us to question certain things they say or teach us even in schools.

A creative mind in action

But to liberate ourselves from the shackles of corrupt culture, bad leadership and economic turmoil like the recession, we need to start asking questions. Until we start to question, for instance the integrity and the knowledge capacity of the man who a party presents as a candidate, we will continue to vote the wrong people into power. Until we begin to question how can we better our systems’, like the transport system, the housing system, the financial system, the energy system, the entertainment system, the corporate system, the judicial system etc., we would not be able to break free from that which is preventing us from moving forward.

It is only a bad leader and teacher who is afraid of questions from their subordinate or students, knowing they only hold the have on their subjects is the answer to the question they would get when they ask a question.  But a cleaver and intelligent leader or teacher is not afraid of question, knowing at most he will learn by trying to answer the question or learn from the question.

This times we dealing with requires that we begin to ask our leaders and teachers, which way forward. We need to ask them to explain to us how they intend to liberate us from these economic woes that have befallen us, we need them to tell us what to expect in this times, we need our leaders to show us that they understand correctly the nature of the economic issues that we are dealing with, at worst let us ask them what they are doing about it, and expect them to give us answers in clear terms.

But beyond asking our leaders and teachers this obvious and needful questions, we must if we wish to overcome this times and sail to the other side of the shore, begin as a matter of national urgency begin to ask ourselves, how can we effect change we wish to see in our future by solving problems in our various industries and sectors today, how can we be part of the solutions to the problems facing our different sector, and turn things around?

Hard times make champions, this is the time for champions among us to  unveiled if we must overcome these times.

The history of American industrial revolution is full of entrepreneurs who took advantage of the war times and recessions to establishing or reposition their business, by providing solutions to the various problems caused by war or recession.

We can do same in Nigeria, and indeed Africa today, if only we can change our mindset and develop a mindset that will ask critical questions and try to offer the answer.

Let’s do away with our petty minds of playing politics and religion, while hoping solutions to our problems is going to come from the western world. We are the solution to our problem f we can look inwards, everyman asking how can I make my sector better?

Granted we have people that we have committed the task of rebuilding this nation, their history so far has shown they lack the knowledge base capacity to liberate us, and so we should do what we should do, or drown with them.

Like Mark Zuckerberg and co, let us build like Winston Churchill said, empires of the mind, and not depend on the empires of oil and government contracts, if we truly wish to rule our world.