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The Nigerian Mind & Rejection of Coincidence


Although Nigeria is home to people numerously distinguishable linguistically and culturally, idea that everything in life happens for a reason is a collective unconscious of the people.

Without labouring the point, this intuitive outlook on life of the Nigerian springs from the settled view that her or his existence is for a purpose (kadara or aka or makoma or destiny) and their lived experiences can thereby not be mere coincidences. The destiny claim underpinning existence unravels, otherwise.

Put it in another way. Rejecting coincidence is the root of religion. The belief in destiny seems logical, as it appears a satisfying answer to  the one question that torments mind of anyone capable of reflection: ‘Why am I here?’

However, it can be argued that the Nigerian mind favouring religious explanation for the world around them as opposed to life being a meaningless coincidence which must be analysed and subdued to aid human existence, is why scientific progress that will improve quality of life has failed to take-off in the country. 

 Nok Civilisation that evolved around complex ironworking at the heart of today’s Nigeria (north and middle-belt), with excavated slag dated, conservatively, to be a millennia-old, and another nearby ironworking site, Oboui, said possibly to be location where the human race first smelted iron, sufficiently proves there was a time the people who once lived on land today known as Nigeria never used to be satisfied with destiny only as explanation for life. They subdued their environment and invented tools to aid their existence.

Indeed, science would be impossible without an ability to first mythologize. Thus, having a religious mind doesn't hamper science discovery. This, interestingly, informs title chosen by evolutionary biologist and atheist, Richard Dawkins, for his memoir ‘An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist.’ The mind (itself incorporeal) can wonder endless possibilities and either document it in mathematical symbols (science), or in fables: Adam and Eve, or  The Big Bang. 

Many seekers – tourists and anthropologists – endlessly ponder what Ancient Egyptians were up to thousands of years ago erecting awing stone pyramids pointed at the sun, moon and stars. Heliographs inside the pyramids’ chambers depict burial rites of dead Pharaohs transported into incorporeal realms. Today, the human race has safely walked on the moon, and receives live-feeds from other planets existing alongside our planet: earth. We are even exploring other planets if suitable to aid human life. Egypt’s pyramids could well be physical representation – praxis – of mythical beginnings of today’s space travel realities. As today’s Multiverse hypothesis is yet mythical cradle of what may become tomorrow’s realities.

It struck me recently that it was a common scene in movies made by Yoruba people of Nigeria in the 80s for a seer to view on Ifa board activities of persons at distant locations in real-time, and feedback their activities to person who had sought their help. This was before techies invented the webcam at Cambridge University. 

 Igbo people of Nigeria have also immemorially organised a theocratic state around deity ‘Amadioha’ – which means collective will of the people – believed to dispense judgment by lightning strike when that collective will was broken. This appears a mythical form of social order which political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, proffered to his society, England, across the ocean from the Igbo-world in 1651 Treatise ‘Leviathan.’ Same theme of general will continues in Rousseau’s 1762 ‘The Social Contract.’

It’s clear the Nigerian mind has intact its innate ability to wonder beyond what she or  he can touch, and to solve societal problems. So, what’s responsible for the abundant human lack we see today in Nigeria? I argue the answer is connected to the Nigerian’s rejection of coincidence and accepting destiny as the only explanation for life.

Although the human ability to wonder (mythologize) is intuitive, accepting to same degree that life is unexplainable solely by myths is what spurs us to prune or discard those myths (which are, in fact, hypotheses) and what we are left with is something repeatable under same circumstances, anywhere, anytime, with same result: science.

Safe to say a mythical God of iron [as collective wish] would’ve percolated minds of the people who became Nok Civilisation before they actualised the metal by which they subdued Nature to kick-off their agrarian life and aesthetics. Same way myths of the Arabian Magic Carpet, or Daedalus, had enthralled human minds elsewhere many centuries before the first aeroplane patent was granted.

In rejecting coincidence as a complementary explanation for life to mysticism, the Nigerian denies herself or himself permission to actualise that collective wish (praxis) to improve quality of life scientifically – whether in politics, medicine or technology – within boundaries of the nation. Evidently, no sooner had the average Nigerian encountered a challenge in life  than she or he voiced ‘this happened for a reason' or 'God will solve it,’ a collective unconscious that’s created a disempowering atmosphere wherein societal problems are lamented vigorously with no matching impetus to subdue them.






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