Opinion: Environmental limitations

I stumbled on a podcast talking about wealth and purpose, some group of American students had invited one of the wealthiest and most purposeful -Warren Buffet and he made a lot of sense in the one hour plus he spoke.

Of the many enlightening things he said, one stood out mostly for me and that was because I could relate firsthand with the line of thought.

Warren is of the opinion that he, Bill Gates and a lot of others born in America, had opportunities and privileges unavailable to a vast majority of people born around the world at the time. He acknowledges the many opportunities being an American came with.

One can say that besides the tabula rasa state from which all men are born, the evolution of the mind, thought pattern, desires, choices, relationship, ambition, goals and motivation are all intrinsically tied to a lot of factors, of which environment is most important.

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People have argued against this with cases that infinitesimally occur; say one out of a million.

Sadio Mane of Liverpool grew up in the streets of Bambali playing football coupled with his family being too poor to afford to send him to school. He has risen to be one of the most successful footballers in recent times and can arguably be the richest person from Bambali, but what’s the story of every other uneducated Bambali kid? One would still argue in support of birthing children in poor environment and families using Sadio Mane’s story to buttress their point.

Every year, millions of Nigerian youths scout for the abysmally poor tertiary educational institutions in the country, same time millions are graduating and preparing for youth service, same time hundreds of thousands are celebrating their pass out parade in preparation for a dim future caused by reckless leadership and a mediocre environment.

In the height of the pandemic, some country’s government sponsored laboratories and funded research in desperation to find a lasting solution to the COVID-19 menace. Personels in the field of microbiology, virology and the likes were gainfully employed to battle this invisible plague, whereas people in similar fields here only found themselves there because they didn’t reach the cut off mark for their desired field; mostly medicine. Majority of our graduates end up with whatever life Nigeria hands to them.

There is no mild saying how advantageous a progressive society and blooming environment can aid an individual towards a brighter, fulfilling and more rewarding life.

Most times, I feel imprisoned like a caged bird, I feel like I cannot reach the peak of my potential. I feel like there is too much in me to offer but my environment clips my wings tightly. I know there are a lot of Nigerians who feel this same way. Globally, we’ve been touted to be a resilient bunch, people have praised our never dying spirits knowing that if we switch places, we will achieve far greater than what is already accomplished.

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One of the recent interviews with the Nigerian Anthony Joshua, the anchor was trying to make Joshua look bad for being so loyal to his roots and said something about the high rate of fraudulence linked to Nigeria to which Anthony Joshua defended the nation along the lines that ‘if Nigerians with lesser educational quality, fluctuating electricity and shabby internet, network and data services could pull the class of stunts making the news (Invictus Obi, Ramon Abbas, et al), then imagine what the people would do if the right things are made available to them in the right proportions’.

The internet truly has consolidated the world, creating a solution, bridging the gap of information, yes an expensive opportunity for Nigerians, expensive as the rising cost of data and the absence of electricity is a strong militating factor, but an opportunity nevertheless, one for which Nigerians can take advantage of the data provided them for free and transform oneself unimaginably, to find alternative ways to take part and position in the digital economy, we must not keep looking to what was but what is and what will be.

Your environment can be your enemy! Live beyond it!