When will we reward our own efforts?

Cocoa beans ready for processing. A ton of cocoa can be bought from Ivory Coast at about $2,400. This makes the farmers extremely happy, as, in their view, they have made good money. Photo/FILE

What you need to know:

  • Once the thoughts come from outside, he explained, they would receive better reception and acclaim than if we channelled them directly.
  • The funniest incident concerns another friend of mine who just loved journalism.

About a year ago, I wrote a column here about consumers and processors. This week, I have reason to revisit the subject. Let me first do a recap of what I wrote before. (READ: If curiosity killed the cat, not me)
A ton of cocoa can be bought from Ivory Coast at about $2,400. This makes the farmers extremely happy, as, in their view, they have made good money.
The cocoa is exported to Switzerland, processed into chocolate and sold back to the market at a price of $19,000 per ton. Clearly, the value is in processing.
The same applies in different areas. Crude oil is exported and refined and sold back as petrol. Gold is exported and sold back as watches and other ornaments. Precious stones are exported and sold back as jewellery. All these are sold back at several times the price of the unprocessed product.
This crisis is compounded by the fact that many of us take so much delight in what comes from abroad. We forget that the coffee was grown in our backyard, and develop pride in drinking only imported coffee. Imported? 
Years ago when I was a research assistant at a very prestigious research institute in Nigeria, I remember my director – a professor of international economics – telling me that the easiest way to get our thoughts recognised would be to send them to our partners in schools like Harvard, Yale or Oxford. Once the thoughts come from outside, he explained, they would receive better reception and acclaim than if we channelled them directly.
This kind of thing happened this week. I read of a young Kenyan aged 20, who had developed his version of a plane. He wanted to fly and 500 people had gathered to watch him, but he was told by the police that he would be breaking the law.
Here’s the irony. If the young man was a Kenyan living in the US and he did the same thing, we would claim him and he would probably receive a presidential award.
Think of the number of athletes who bear African names but carry other nations’ flags.
In this part of the world, we seem to be poor at processing but excellent claimers of finished products.
I have a Nigerian friend who would always be caned by his parents and teachers for being too playful. His love for football was simply out of the ordinary.
When he went to the UK and began to play for a premier league club, I was shocked to see his parents and teachers all say that they always knew he would be a great footballer, which was why they supported his football dream. Really?
The funniest incident concerns another friend of mine who just loved journalism.
When we were in school, he started his version of a magazine (a few sheets of A4 paper typed and stapled together). He would interview anyone who could talk. He was jeered and despised, and eventually, he had to drop out of the school.
He later became a very successful business man and publisher, and he was celebrated abroad. There were pictures of him meeting with the Queen. What happened next?
The very school that had kicked him out gave him an honorary doctorate as one of their most illustrious alumni.
Friends, until we begin to appreciate the potential in ourselves and we encourage and create platforms for this potential to be developed, we will continue to be claimers, consumers and backward.
Anyone can celebrate the diamond when it is processed.
It takes a special kind of skill to cut and clean the diamonds, and it takes even greater skill to dig the ground hoping to find diamonds.
Africa is full of some of the greatest diamond fields of talent. It’s time for the African visionaries to start digging and drilling.