Have you noticed that we celebrate paper qualifications above actual solutions? A person with a first class PHD is highly celebrated, but a person with a solution may not be recognized especially if he lacks high qualifications?

Take a visit to some of our mechanic villages. You will be astounded at the level of creativity that goes uncelebrated simply because the culture views these people as “uneducated” technicians.  By the way, education can be both formal and informal.

It is not that academic qualifications are bad. No they are not. They should be celebrated. However, what should be more celebrated is SOLUTIONS to real life problems. A degree in engineering on its own is great, but a generator to provide electricity is greater.

All societies world over have problems. However, what separates some communities from others is that some of them imbibe a solution driven mindset to their problems while others remain the same. In Nigeria, we have too many communities who have simply accepted their fate and sit back waiting for either the Government, or the big company out there or perhaps some foreign intervention.

This is not right. God made man a creator by nature.  It does not matter how disadvantaged a person is, if he or she has the mindset of an innovator, he will eventually find a way. There is a saying “where there is a will, there is a way.” When water continues to drip on a surface- as harmless as a drop of water may seem on its own- the constant effect will eventually erode the surface.

Why do we depend on generators from overseas yet we have electricity problems? Why have we not invented systems that could make households function without need for the national grid? How about technology to tar village roads without needing bitumen? How about unique cooking systems which convert waste to fuel…. etc etc etc.

We need solution providers to be seen as the role models in our value systems. We need to focus and celebrate creativity. Those thousands of projects in the the university communities need to be converted to real stuff. Mercedes Benz engineers are regarded as top notch because they produce Mercedes Benz! They would be worth nothing if all they had was engineering degrees without the product.

The investors, millionaires and billionaires worth celebrating should be those who have contributed to the unleashing of local technology. This whole thing calls for a total shift in culture and values.

On the African continent, Dr Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Republic of Botswana, recently called for an “innovation revolution” in Africa. “African innovators live in a new era of opportunity enterprise where there is enormous need for innovation,” she said, adding that since Africa has the fastest-growing population on earth, it has huge human capital potential.

We’re sitting on a gold mine, but we need to change the way we think to recognize and dig the gold. The average Nigerian celebrates his ability to escape overseas and live in a decent community, but on the contrary, our friends from the developed nations celebrate their ability to transform their own communities into desirable locations.

We celebrate degrees and qualifications from foreign universities and that’s okay, but its not the ultimate, because these institutions were created by people also. These institutions are what they are because they produced people who went and created things that made their communities more attractive. It is the end product that eventually makes the qualification attractive. Time needs to come where beyond qualifications, we focus on the what is produced from these qualifications. These first class brains should arise and produce first class products that will make life easier for the average Nigerian. And those who have created successful solutions whether or not they hold degrees should be celebrated as though they earned a first class degree.