By Olisa Okolo
If you haven’t read Malcolm Gladwell’s book – Outliers, you would be forgiven for disputing what I am about to write as not even a bit entertaining and definitely not a mind opening dissection of human behavior. In fact, you would be understandably circumspect on these conclusions I am about to make, and rightly so.
In Outliers, Gladwell explains what makes people extraordinarily successful. An abridged version of this is:
1. You need to be smart and have a reasonable level IQ, but not a superb one associated with genius levels.
2. You have to put at least 10,000 hours of practice into your area of talent or expertise.
3. You have to be born at the right place and the right time.
The last point is one of the core themes in his book and he took great pains to summarize his studies on the point thus – WHERE you are born and WHEN you are born are two great determining factors in the opportunities that you are most equipped to excel in. In this dynamic, what was most interesting was Gladwell’s findings on the impact of culture. When researching this point and associating it with why Asians are good at math, Gladwell pointed at two main reasons: the Chinese number-naming system, and rice paddies.
If you study Chinese, you can agree how much easier it is to count to a 100 in Chinese than in English. It is as logical as the decimal system. You just need to be able to memorize 1-9, 10, and 100. 11 is ten-one, 12 is ten-two, and so on. 20 is two-ten, 21 is two-ten-one, 30 is three-ten, and so on. 1-9 are also short, single syllable words, compared to its English counterparts.
But the impact of a cultural legacy of working on rice paddies is really the underlying factor. The chapter starts with the Chinese proverb:
“No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.”
So, the harder and smarter you work on a rice paddy, the greater the output. But what does this have to do with the Southern part of Nigeria, and what can we learn from this in our efforts to #EndThisSystem of a corrupt military establishment complex that has misled our country for the entirety of its history? To understand this and answer the question, we need to understand YAM FARMING.
Yam is one of the most important food crops in tropical climates, especially in areas with moderate rainfall. The cultivation of yam complements food security. Because yam traditionally was a major source of calories for the agrarian societies in pre-colonial southern Nigeria, it is a major contributing factor to shaping the cultural fabric and social relations of most cultures found in the southern parts of Nigeria, amongst many other African societies.
According to that 20th century anthropologist Basden on the complex processes for cultivating yam:
“Successful yam cultivation requires a distinct method of earthing up the soil and this fact rather points to the improbability of any great agricultural reforms being introduced so long as yam growing is the paramount industry. Ploughing would not answer even were it possible … it seems highly probable that the primitive hoe will never be displaced from yam farming purposes and there is no doubt that the implements are peculiarly suitable and very effective in the hands of the native.”
If one is to parse this statement, you can glean two bits of information. One, that yam cultivation is not easy and requires specialized knowledge and tools. Two, that yam farming is not suitable for mechanized farming and relies much on the hoe, which is a highly individualized implement. So, no matter the fact that many individuals may be involved on the same stretch of land, cultivating yam, the act itself is of a highly individual nature – A man and his hoe, or a woman and her hoe.
Achebe’s 1958 novel, Things Fall Apart, devoted much time to yam and attests to the reverence and socioeconomic value that the Igbo, rich or poor, attach to yam. Achebe depicts the visit of Okonkwo (the principal character) to Nze Nwakibie, who is a successful yam farmer (the general local appellation for a successful yam farmer is “diji”). Okonkwo’s mission was to ask for a loan of seed yams to sow in his farm. In his visit, Okonkwo acknowledges that it is difficult to trust another man with yams and promised Nze Nwakibie that if given the seed yams that he will not fail. Nwakibie responds thus:
“It pleases me to see a young man like you these days when our youth have gone so soft. Many young men come to me to ask for yams but I have refused because I know they would dump them in the earth and leave them to be choked by weeds. When I say no to them they think that I am hard-hearted. But it is not so.”
It is not hard to note the reverence with which the concept of requesting and gifting the seedlings was discussed in this traditional setting, but what is easily missed, is that both Okonkwo and Nze Nwakibie closely associated the success of the yam cultivation with the prowess or otherwise of the individual who is cultivating it. Nze Nwakibie continued this theme as he finally agreed to Okonkwo’s request,
“Eneke the bird says that since men have learnt to shoot without missing, he has learnt to fly without perching. I have learnt to be stingy with my yams. But I can TRUST YOU. I KNOW IT AS I LOOK AT YOU. As our fathers said, you can tell a ripe corn by its look. I shall give you twice four hundred yams. Go and prepare your farm (Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe p. 16).”
Looking at this and superimposing these thoughts onto Gladwell’s concepts, it is easy to see why cultures which focus on the cultivation of yam, that highly individualized crop, are highly individualized themselves. The success or failure of such people is strongly tied to the character of the individual. Here, the potential for cooperation is less necessary than it would be for a herder, who in order to achieve large increases in cattle, would need a group of herders, working as a collective, under the leadership and direction of a leader, armed and capable to protect the herd from rustlers. Unlike the herder, the yam farmer only knows the need for his own acumen and that of his immediate family or clan. Therefore it was the norm for the farmer to only recognize their immediate clan as their social identity, relegating all others to the role of transient acquaintances or trade partners only. There was no need for a wider identity as Igbo or Yoruba etc. The village or clan identity was sufficient as a social structure and anything beyond it merely superfluous.
We must understand that this is the cultural underbelly of the people of southern Nigeria. We note that Nze Nwakibie did not sell the seeds to Okonkwo, rather, he LENT them to him. All Okonkwo had to do was cultivate the yams properly, and he would have enough to return Nwakibia’s original loan of seedlings with fully grown yams, and still have enough to start off his own barn. The yams were important, but they were not do or die affairs. What was more important was the character of the individual farming them. So, the main quality respected in a man in the southern cultures is hardwork and persistence.
When contrasted with the northern herder, whose main quality is bravery and honor, the southern Nigerian’s focus on hardwork and persistence creates a different value system and outlook which however should not be reason for division. When put together, these qualities from the north and south should complement each other, allowing each to leverage each other’s attitudes to life and living, in true keeping with the idea that no one system is superior to the other, both being able to create individuals who are capable of achieving success if the right opportunities are available to them. These we shall discuss later.
The movement away from yam as the staple food of the south to uncultivated rice and the movement of the elite northerner from herding to more sedentary pursuits have both had devastating effects on the anthropology of the Nigerian. No longer tied to this pastoral or husbandry work ethic, the emphasis of most of the country has instead moved to cultivating the means for which each group hopes to retain its culturally defined roles.
For the northerner, POWER has become the be all and end all, as a means for maintaining his honor and in a bid to protect his way of life that is being drastically eroded by modern western ideals. For the southerner, MONEY has become a cultivated attitude, as it is the means through which hardwork and persistence are remunerated in the modern world, giving them a sense of value and acceptance that would have previously been found in the size of his yam barn.
Understanding this shift is important to recognize how making Nigeria great would mean one thing for the Nigerian from a herder culture, and another thing for the Nigerian from a farmer culture. Both want the same things, security, shelter, health and happiness, but have different means to achieve them.
However, there is common ground that can be found within both cultures, creating an irresistible force for good that can change the trajectory of our nation, and set us on the path to building a strong African giant.
That will be the subject of my NEXT post.
• Okolo is a writer and culture enthusiast.