Why chaotic (extractive) systems do not encourage forward thinking

Oluwabunmi Ajilore
Jul 28, 2017 · 7 min read

A couple of days ago, while trying to reflect on a recent brilliantly written story in The Guardian Nigeria on the wealth and challenges of the wood industry in Oko-Oba in Lagos (see here), and another story on yam farmers’ declining productivity in the past decades; Feyi Fawehinmi wrote an interesting piece questioning how people — who are supposed to be rational thinkers — can consciously make decisions that go against their own interests, their long-term survival, the sustainability of their livelihoods and the legacy/wealth they could have bestowed on their children.

Credit: theconversation.com

Reading the article brought back to my mind something I have been meaning to write for quite some time now but never got around to.

This is based on my observation and reflections as a foresight specialist, as a development professional, as a Nigerian who grew up observing our eccentricities and was at the receiving end of all kinds of abuse by our system; and as a curious learner who have been opportune to associate with and engage a lot of people — friends, colleagues, acquaintances, partners and advisors — from developing countries across Africa and the world.

In his article, Feyi correctly diagnosed the problem of the average Nigerian — which is in the mind/head. What he did admit he could not put his fingers on is why — which he mentioned requires the knowledge of social scientists in Nigeria. (As a trained agriculturist/futures expert, whose training requires combining the understanding of the hard sciences with aspect of social sciences, I will attempt to navigate the murky waters). To that end, I am going to propose some answers, based on my own experiences and observations, to the questions he has raised.

If I were to give a simple and straight answer, I would say that the kind of system — socio-politico-cultural-economic — we run in Nigeria (and by extension many African countries) does not encourage forward thinking. It also does not encourage the kind of strategic planning or (rational) management of resources he would have expected by the virtue of his training and perhaps the more inclusive system he (now) lives in.

First, and I believe almost everyone will agree with this, we run a chaotic/extractive/patronage system that caters to a few at the expense of the many. In the chaotic/extractive system we run, might is right and you grab as much as you can first, before thinking or asking questions.

From the motor park chairmen and louts whose only job is to contrive force to collect royalties/rents; to pastors who use the pulpit to rob their followers, to illegal oil bunkers, to militants in the creek who use force to extort the state, to your average politician whose only claim to brilliance/intelligence is the ability to add many zeros to appropriation bills and bribe his way out when caught; the clear message and signal from the society is, by any means, grab all you can, and grab it now.

Credit: The Guardian Nigeria

In the chaotic system we run, there is no incentive to innovate, to create, to engage in strategic planning or to think about tomorrow. After all, why build up for tomorrow, while another strongman can rise up the next day and take over everything (the motor garage, oilfields, the conserved forest) you think you have built/saved up, from you or your successors; or just take over the control of the state to fritter it away (Obasanjo’s saving up for Yar’Adua/Jonathan to squander comes to mind here)?

Worse still, for the conscientious few, there’s little incentive to bother about the future and conserve a collective/public good for posterity when you are almost sure those coming after you will not?

So, as a Lagos wood venture capitalist, for example, why would you invest your resources in tree planting to replace felled ones while experience has taught you that there is no protection for your investment, and any random person can harvest the trees you plant even before they are mature enough for proper harvesting? (In that situation, the more rational decision is to grab all you can from sector and diversify your means to ensure your children have other, more sustainable means or path to wealth.)

As for the smallholder yam farmers, the key questions will be: why plant the best yams from your harvest, while the total harvest — or whatever you may earn from selling them — will not be enough to tide you and your family over till the next season? Or, better still why starve yourself of the best yams you can get today while, in a country with a life expectancy of 47 years and as a farmer with an average age of about 60 years, you are not even sure of tomorrow? By the way, for the smallholder farmer posterity is out of the question: very few rational smallholder farmers, given the choice, would want their children to inherit their means of livelihood (read: survival).

Credit: Herald.ng

So, though it may appear from a cursory look that the decisions made over the years by the loggers and farmers are irrational and unsustainable for their livelihoods, a more in-depth analysis often show that the decisions made by these people are actually very rational, and is a calculated response to the handicaps of the system within which they toil and have to survive — while also pursuing their own momentary (and measured doses of) happiness while they can.

The key problem with chaotic systems is, everyone lives in fear. The rulers and the ruled. The rich and the poor. The presently disadvantaged and those who hold all the advantages. Because, it is a very imbalanced system, everyone understands that it can be easily upended — sometimes all it needs is just a single person taking a radical decision or action (a la the self-immolated Tunisian young man and Arab Spring). And when upended, a new set of exploiters only replace the old ones; the system itself stays.

So while the poor constantly search for that one chance to overturn the tables and move to the other side, the rich constantly seek to corner all advantages/resources even when they have more than enough — in order to keep the system as it is. Every decision is ruled by the fear of what could be; and fear-based decisions are not the most intelligent, strategic or foresighted decisions. I digressed.

Back to my earlier point, and the crux of this piece is, the decision of the loggers and the farmers are symptomatic of a wider issue in all areas of the chaotic society we have built over the years. Like in a stampede, with a hardly-thinking crowd of people only concerned with getting out first and in the process trampling on others only to realise they killed their own friend/family later, chaotic systems condition the minds of those who live in them in certain ways — especially in a way that seemingly make them work against their own long term interests, while trying to get ahead in the short term.

Because there is little accountability in such systems, everyone runs wild in their own form of exploitation — be it exploiting the forests, exploiting God’s people in worship places, or government coffers. (Over time the system becomes the main thought pattern and a way of life, which further perpetuate/worsen the system.)

The saddest part is, once built and concretised, these systems are difficult to dismantle. Often, there is little incentive to change/reform the system. This is because those who hold nearly all the instruments of power/influence/force to change the system have little to benefit from change. It is a catch-22. Changing the system will require forward thinking by the people in it; whereas, the system prevents the people from being able to engage in forward thinking or act on their foresighted thoughts.

So, breaking out of this cycle — out of this mind-set — will require a disruption to the system — social, technological, political, whatever. To thrive or influence change, this disruption itself will require a fertile ground in the form of a well-educated, enlightened and ready population, able and willing to use new information or power spaces/platform hitherto unavailable to them to advocate for, influence and force change.

Getting a population to this point where they are well informed, educated, ready and willing to drive change — that benefit their own long term interests and build a more inclusive/sustainable system — takes time.

It will involve building/having a critical mass of persistent social mobilisers, advocates, educators, intellectuals and activists committed to the long, tortuous and torturous journey of continually educating, informing and engaging a population with details and information the beneficiaries of the system will rather prefer they have no access to.

It is a long, winding and labyrinthine road. And for Nigeria (and many African countries), sadly, we are still languishing at the starting point.

  • Oluwabunmi Ajilore

Oluwabunmi Ajilore

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Agriculture. Foresight and Future Studies. Development. Nigerian.

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