By Bashir Kabir
In some unfortunate instances of research history in both popular science and academia, the people of the African origin were regarded naturally less capable of being intelligent. The infamous IQ testing, in the US periodically shows tendencies of the black race appearing at the lower rungs of the scores. It is not even difficult to brush this aside as a racial profiling attempt of stereotyping in the best political sense.
It becomes worst yet when one looks at the African context. Africans are seen as quite unintelligent with inferior logical reasoning. It is not something that is openly spoken, but nowadays, due to the internet and the free interaction it comes with, as an African one can always sense the undertone of intellectual contempt from other races during the first minutes of an encounter until proven otherwise.
While the other side of the subject might believe there is truth to the fact that Africans are less intelligent than the others, we look at that as their own best perception. The field of science and technology, yes, is filled with inventions supposedly solely achieved by all races other than the black race, but let’s not start digging deeper into that propaganda-infested waters to unveil how politics makes everything developmental looks exactly what it is not. Still, what has the black race been doing wrong to earn this humiliating seat of mediocrity, lack of recorded feat, and the continuity of it?
An article I read recently written by Muhammad Bala naturally rang a bell. In it, he aptly termed a bunch of non-thinking, crowd-gathering, and noise-making portion of the Nigerian personalities claiming to know better, the ‘mediocre messiahs’. These are the people that could easily have ended up being leaders but somehow their thinking faculty lacks logical orchestration and hence ended up being just the mediocre they are and at best got themselves jammed in a serious trouble. But what about those that succeeded being the leaders.
I’d like to complete the Bala’s list of ‘mediocre messiahs’ by giving free admission to a vast majority of our leaders both current and in the past. They are the portion of the leadership displaying the same tendencies of lacking sound intellect to enable them efficiently perform like the exapmlery leaders they should be.
In an address giving by the renowned lawyer and activist Barr Bulama Bakarti at a summit termed ‘The Second Shinkafi Intelligence Security Summit. Theme: The Socio-economic Implications of Kidnapping and Banditry in Nigeria.’ He bluntly pointed out how the lack of security policy framework, synergy and coordination among the security outfits among others is making the security situation going from bad to worst.
Where his hammer hit harder is how he pointed out that there is no exemplary leadership to look up to in the country. This, directly put focus back on the leadership capability and ultimately, intellect. The intelligence of these people we call leaders calls for questioning. Is the world them as a yardstick to measure the intellect of the whole continent? It has to be so because if not, every now and then one hears news of the best lawyer, doctor, engineer, designer, artist, athlete, and whatnot coming directly from the Nigerian soil, African American or just black in general (but mostly Nigerians to be honest).
Lack of intellect is not Africanism. But obviously having ‘mediocre messiah’ is becoming one. For the sake of clarity, Africanism is anything that can be identified with the African language, culture, way of life and thinking et cetra. The pandemic of dumb leaders is not a Nigerian catastrophe. A lot of African continents are suffering from the same. The few shining beacons of hope trying their best ended up being overwhelmed high influx of negativities. Those promising better tomorrow ended up being compromised in a ‘if you cannot beat them, join them’ fashion.
In an instance of initiatives of solving problems and delivering good governance worthy of being exemplery, people like the governor of Borno state have been tackling the menace of insecurity even if with limited capability. The security of lives and property being the priority of existence is handled with soft gloves. If anything, this could be the pinnacle slowed intelligence displayed by the leadership.
It might be that the black race in general, is always pulled back by misfortunes ranging from slavery, colonialization and recently by corrupt-to-blindness leaders. These would take a toll on any society and doom it to several barkwardness. characterized as unintelligent being just one of them.
The intelligentsia domiciling in the various university faculties accross the country cannot be disregarded as nonexistent. The fact that their various contributions in form of researches, inventions and discoveries were never heard of can be blamed on the same bad governance, manned by mediocre leadership that doesn’t see it important to promote such. At various levels of professional and business endeavour one often come across an exceptional mind but the reality is the policymakers, the earth-movers of positive change, those with the gavel to make it happen have their heads facing elsewhere, having no clue what needs to be done and believing they are the objects of worship for all.
While it is irrational to assume whether or not Africans are the least intelligent race by any standard (assuming there is an authentic way of knowing such), it is evident that the people running their affairs might have fallen under the mediocre category.
