By Tim Akano
Of the 2 G’s (God and Geography), cracking the former code is much easier than the latter.
Why? The first Gnis a question of practical personal choice, unlike geography that requires wisdom of the Team for activation.
God is like electricity. Anytime one switches on the light bulb, darkness automatically disappears from the environment and the mind, both receive illumination concomitantly.
Ignorance of the sucket’s location in the room/mind is not synonymous with absence of Light.
The Light is ever present and always ready to work with us but certainly not for us.
The task is to acquire necessary and sufficient knowledge for result-oriented positioning and partnership with a view to gaining access to His presence and leveraging His limitless power. God is universally accessible and the franchise, (no exclusivity, not transferable) though costly, is readily available to buy, own and operate by all, regardless of geography, race, history, gender and time.
Unfortunately, the second G, Geography is the Achilles heel, always almost beyond individual’s capacity to create, you don’t create geography, rather you are essentially Mr Geography’s child. Furthermore, geography requires a team to beget.
Unfortunately, Africans both on the mainland and in the diaspora have always scored F9 when it comes to Team Work! Not until the Chinese and the Jewish respectively came together as a race, civilisations remained elusive to both. Today they both score A1 in Tram Work.
Mathematically, S= G ➕ G ➕ X,
where X = ABCD (I.e. Ability Boldness, Capacity & Diligence and S stands for success)
However, the emphasis has always been about finding the missing X in life’s equation . But X’s role is over rated and hyped as the possession of all the ABCD qualities does not guarantee S.
For instance, England’s fertile geography produced Anthony Joshua, the Nigeria’s born world heavyweight champion. If he had stayed back in his home town, Sagamu, Nigeria, the chances are nine to ten that he would have ended up as dreg of the society, or a hunter of bush meat.
The same goes for President George Weah of Liberia who was the first and only African ever to win the prestigious world footballer award of the year.
Footballer George Weah was a product of Europe fertile geography. If he had stayed in Liberia all his life, he probably would have ended up as a Child’s soldier in Charles Taylor Military camp and received either a short sleeve or long sleeve treatment during the Liberia’s senseless civil war.
After God, it is Geography, or Environment, if you like.
For instance, Africans as a race are very religious with ability, boldness, capacity and diligence (ABCD).
Despite limitless indidual successes (Nobel laureate, scientific breakthrough sports awards CNN Africa Hero’s etc), Africans have not been able to build a fertile environment that will nature a critical pool of talents with which to build her civilization.
The missing link is Geography, not God, and certainly, not X.
The Scottish Age of Enlightenment begot Edinburgh, just as the world remains forever indebted to the Renaissance Florence and the Athenian civilisation
The Forbes billionaires like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bozos and other Valleyites etc are all beneficiaries of the fertile Geography of America’s Silicon Valley. They are not the Best-in-Class by any reckoning. But they ended up as the richest in the world through a favourable geography.
Similarly, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Lorenzo the Magnificent De Medici among others in that generation were all products of the fertile Florence renaissance geography. The pool of talents in Florence as at that age was unbeatable.
Athenian renaissance produced massive personalities like Pythagoras, Archimedes, Plato, Socrates, Homer, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great, who collectively built the Athenian civilisation that was once the world’s center of gravity.
There are millions of individuals with ABCD qualities in North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, or even Russia today wasting away.
Unarguably, a Samsung Tree ( speaking metaphorically) cannot grow in Noth Korea, neither can an Apple or Google or Boeing Tree grow in Africa of today no matter how hardworking the young African leaders may be.
The pools of African talents are scattered worldwide, not structured, not cultivated and bereft of direction. Without first fixing this lacuna, everything else will remain broken. Geography question requires practical solution, not prayers.
First thing first: Africa’s sterile geography must be made fertile before the transformation tree can grow and blossom.
Unarguably, after God, environment is the next most important variable in the success equation for continent, country, club, race or individual.
A 9-year old girl in Afghanistan is a potential baby factory, whereas her colleague in UAE is an Ellon Musk in the making getting ready for a return trip to Space. Same religion, but different geography.
Why the massive gulf in development between Haiti and America despite the fact that they are both neighbours and age mates? Geography
The Moon is another Geography’s favourite child. It is the sun that generates all the heat through fusion, the sun does all the hard work. The Moon doesn’t produce its own light. When the moon appears to glow, it is actually bouncing sunlight from the day side of the earth to the night side where you are viewing it. The Moon is a mirror, a light reflector, not a light producer. Without sunlight, the Moon has zero light to offer!
Of all the Nature’s creations, the Moon is the smartest, by learning how to position itself perpendicularly to attract light from the sun without generating heat, the moon has lent credence to the immutability of the Law of Geography.
The modern world started In Silicon Valley, the best location for technological inventions, a place like no other, where cathedral-size successes happen daily. The rulers of the world live and work there wearing torttle neck T-shirts and blue jeans.
Silicon Valley is the closest thing to modern day Athens or Florence, or Edinburgh and Hangzhou
Silicon Valley is not a product of luck, rather it is an exploiter of luck. She exploits the beautiful weather of California and the humongous pool of talents at Stanford University to create untold fortune. The inhabitants are more of tinkers than thinkers, always creating pillars and hypothesis of what must come next in relative probability.
They have only one religion: putting a dent on the universe with a theological confidence that there’s always a better way.
The economy of the state of California is the largest in America, boasting of a $3.0 Trillion as Gross State Product (GSP). If California were to be a sovereign nation, it will be the 5th largest economy in the world, bigger than India and of course bigger than all the 54 African countries combined.
Africa’s Silicon Valley: Creatio ex-nihilo
Without first deliberately building a pool of targeted talents in 6 locations across the six regions of Africa, Africa’s dreams and aspirations of modernisation will remain a will-o-the-wisp, an illusion.
This was what the Greeks did in Athens, the Italians in Florence, the Scottish in Edinburgh, the Chinese (1.0) in Hangzhou and this is what America is doing at Silicon Valley and what China (2.0) is doing in Shenzhen and Taiwan. As I write, according to Apple CEO, Tim Cook, there are 2 million Chinese youths with cutting edge technology skills writing codes for Apple.
In Shenzhen, China Technology hub, home grown Tech giants like Tencent and Huawei are leading other Chinese innovations that compete with Silicon Valley.
VIRTUALIZATION OF SILICON VALLEY/ BUILDING SILICON VALLEY OF THE MIND
No doubt, Africa needs to create a critical mass of talents in space, time and mind. Space matters. Time matters. Mind matters. Every Golden Age does this!
But what is possible and achievable immediately is the creation of the Silicon Valley of the mind.
With about 10 million African Valleyites, equipped with the 4.0 skills, modernisation will happen.
The VALLEYITES MENTALITY
1 Tradition-Neutral
2 Improvability
3 Failing Foolishly, failing fast and failing forward
4 Maximising the Law of unintended consequences
5 Optimism and creativity are contagious
6 Weak ties more profitable than strong friendship
7 The First-Starter Advantage
8 Audacity: the bigger the chip on the Start-Up founder’s shoulder the better for fund raising
9 Right idea, right Timing, right Funding
CONCLUSION:
Location! Location!! Location!!!
Africa needs 6 regional Technology hubs, all linked to one another to begin the construction of her civilization, no doubt.
But Mind, too, is one location, and indeed, the most critical location
Therefore, let us shift our focus away from physical geography to virtual geography, for now.
The expectation is that when the mind is liberated and de-colonised, every other thing will follow.
Young African leaders worldwide need to learn from successful Silicon Valleyites and build cross-country congolomertes that can compete with the best in the world.
In Silicon Valley, it is said that if you fail, your family won’t know, your neighbors won’t care and investors won’t stigmatize you.
Good morning Africa
*Tim Akano
Timakano1@gmail.com
