By; BUHARI HABIBU, PhD
Most multinational companies doing business in Nigeria are from more developed nations. Like other parts of the world, a number of multinational and local companies that heavily drain the monthly income of our citizens or exploit our natural resources are involved in the provision of corporate social responsibility or implementation of community development projects based on agreed community development agreement (CDA).
In Nigeria, significant components of these corporate social responsibilities are entertainment programmes or entertainment-like competitions shown on television channels nationwide. These companies give insignificant attention to issues directly related to educational, scientific, technological and socioeconomic development.
This is unlike the Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria, which are involved in corporate social responsibility through philanthropy. These SMEs are directly involved in the payment of scholarships for the needy, supply of drinking water, payment of hospital bills for the poor, sponsorship of community development projects, among others.
In other countries of the world, multinational companies spend billions of dollars on various programmes as corporate social responsibility, including: educational programmes, skill development training, social welfare support, healthcare provision, research to solve contemporary challenges and environmental conservation.
This social responsibility provides the basis for the multinational and large local companies to be involved in the development of highly knowledgeable, skilled, healthy and responsible citizens that will benefit the same companies in the near future and uplift the image of the host country in the eyes of the world.
Besides a couple of corporate social responsibilities provided by multinational companies in the oil and gas sector, the trend is to invest heavily in projects that have little impact on the substance of our development, but rather consequential in interfering with the intellectual development of the youths. This predisposition is not surprising as these companies give us what we want as citizens. The fact is, Nigerians love entertainment. This probably enables us to smile while suffering, and trivialise most of our major national ailments that need urgent attention and immediate search for remedy. This is why after a national predicament, comes a series of videos and animations making a comedy of the calamitous challenge on social media.
Nigeria as a nation is highly dedicated to appreciating and celebrating individuals that have engaged and are successful in endeavors related to entertainment, with little or no attention given to our citizens that have embarked on a success journey through scientific or technological development.
This is what we, and sometimes our governments stand for, and so, some of these multinational and large local companies follow suit. How can we develop when private companies doing business within our country consider investing elaborately in entertainment as the major means of saying thank you to Nigerians and a principal means of corporate social responsibility?
From companies in telecommunications to those involved in production of beverages, all we see is a series of public shows of huge investment in entertainment. When they need research that will improve their products or services, it is done in developed and serious countries. Meaning we are only good for entertainment and only need to be entertained to increase our patronage.
No wonder, Nigeria was virtually helpless scientifically and technologically during the Covid-19 pandemic and only then, we met the consequences of allowing an essential portion of the psychology, emotion and intellectuality of our youths to be distanced from a national problem-solving mentality.
A number of television channels that attract tremendous public attention are completely choked with issues that will never lead us to any serious development, such as comedy, Western-type music, celebrity gist, football, dancing competitions, frivolous auditions, reality competition TV series among many others; usually adopted from countries that mountainously invest in science, but inconsiderably in entertainment.
Considerable number of such television programmes are sponsored by multinational companies that have made zero to little investment in true national development. These programmes do capture the attention of the entire nation, especially the upcoming generation who are exceptional and strategic in the development of any civilization. While we complain of underdevelopment, our activities and thoughts are mainly focused on entertainment and frivolous politics.
Ranging from our media houses, cultural settings, family settings, social lives, community activities and every other aspect that affects our daily activities; all we discuss are people that are directly or indirectly related to entertainment and politics. These have made our youths and sometimes the elderly passionately occupied with the tales of the best artist of the year, the best football club, the best actor or actress and the social life of politicians and their families. Thus, the mind of an average Nigerian child is predominated with the thought of becoming a popular super star or a politician so that he can be well-known and become very rich within the twinkle of an eye. In addition, this has made the entertainment industry one of the fastest growing in the country and has made politics the most lucrative job in Nigeria, and probably other African countries.
Thus, people go into politics to amass wealth and never to lead. These collectively account for the poverty of creativity and the large number of unemployable youths on the streets of our nation.
Any society in which a negligible number of youths are concerned with development in science, technology, economics, culture and commerce is doomed to end up importing most essential products and services it needs.
In today Nigeria, no one is thinking of innovation in agriculture, medicine, electronics, construction, chemistry or indigenous cultural revolution. Hardworking Nigerians in their various fields of endeavor are never recognised and rewarded publicly. In the whole of Nigeria, there is no lucrative award for an innovative scientific or social achievement which can be publicly displayed to attract the minds of the youths to make them aspire. This is unlike in entertainment and politics where several awards exist and are being created regularly by many governmental and non-governmental organisations. Such award ceremonies are made public and fantastically patronised by all media houses making it highly captivating; and usually the talk of the country.
Film and music sectors are important to the nation; in 2019 alone, these sectors attracted about 104 million dollars to the county’s economy. The danger is not that we are celebrating our celebrities, but the fact that this is what we do mainly, and we do not celebrate hard work and productive innovations in the fields that represent the main substance of national development.
Our governments and media houses must start attracting the minds of the youths to the need to think innovatively and be industrious. The role of the media in actualising this new paradigm for a more productive population of young Nigerians cannot be over emphasised.
The government must start implementing policies that will make this new paradigm a reality by making all such companies do the needful. This can be achieved by creating beautiful and captivating programmes that could predominate the minds of our youths with creativity, innovation and hard work.
Multinational and large local companies can take a clue from the sponsor of Cowbellpedia, a programme where secondary school students are celebrated in a fantabulous television show for their performance in the field of mathematics. Both the government and these companies need to do more in identifying, awarding and celebrating Nigerians based on hard work, academic excellence, innovation in science and technology, and creativity in culture and art.
This is the line towed by the developed countries and has taken them to the exalted status they currently occupy. The existence of an efficient reward system justifies why Nigerians excel in all life endeavors in the diaspora. Any developed nation that detaches itself from innovative science and embraces entertainment and non-productive politicking will fall back to the status of many underdeveloped nations.
Dr. Habibu lectures in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and can be reached through buharihabibu@rocketmail.com
