Culture as a template for mental capital development

This topic came up in my mind after I read an article entitled, ‘Are Nigeria politicians crazy?’ What is quite obvious concerning Nigeria is that she is blessed with natural resources and some folks add that we are blessed with human resources — a point I disagree with. Of course, we have numerous professionals, technologists and even academicians who, possibly, may be literate but not educated. This does not confer on Nigeria the status of being “blessed” with human resources. The value of human resources in any society is the calibre of mental capital it can deliver. We have a critical mass of human resources with some literacy, but not essentially educated. We have acquired some knowledge in a manner that did not interrogate our culture, hence the disconnect between our elites’ claim to education and their leadership failure in all ramifications. Our politicians do not have mental illness; they have only taken advantage of our mediocre cultural software to express their greed. We parade a culture that immunises the leader from scrutiny and has no provision for feedbacks from the polity. It is amazing how modern technology, through computer software programming, controls huge, sophisticated and massive equipment. Those heavy machines with their complex parts move together in synchrony towards a particular function as programmed by computer software. All nations have cultural software that programmes their socio-political behaviour. Education, contact with other civilisations and other means of inculcation of new ideas are only external to the native cultural software of the people. This is in consonance with the principles of socialisation. No race is superior to the other; but the difference lies in the degree that the native culture of such nations has been interrogated, such that destructive components are expunged in the face of universal best practices. This is the mandate of mental capital development as it is being canvassed by developed countries. Rather than single out the politicians as being sick, I locate our cultural software as being pathological, which does not excuse the polity. Our poverty derives not from the scarcity of natural resources but from lack of mental capital. We have aggregates of literate persons constituting the elite class in various sectors of our society who had cumulatively mismanaged our resources over the years because of mediocre mental capital. Our pre-colonial cultural software concerning leadership is defective. As a matter of fact, it is more of rulership than leadership where the elite class assumes the status of an unquestionable deity. If the ruler deems it fit to snatch your wife or acquire your farmland, so be it. This rulership style laid the foundation for contemporary leadership failure and poverty. There is definitely no opportunity for the development of mental capital, which is a resource that grows as questions are asked and decisions are taken for the ultimate good of all and not a select few. In our pre-colonial society, there is no clear-cut facility feedback emanating from the masses to challenge leadership and make them do the right thing. The colonial masters only banished the traditional institutions and imposed their own native colonial masters in all sectors of the society, either through a military junta or through democratic arrangement. The impunity and recklessness of our leaders, supported by our cultural software, is reasonable for poor infrastructural development and most painfully, poor mental capital development. The calibre and the quality of the mental capital of a nation eventually determine the prosperity of that nation. Mental capital is the resource that confers on us the resilience to effectively cope with the challenges of life. It is the resource that empowers individuals to contribute effectively to society and also to experience high quality of life. This mandate transcends the clinical paradigms, as it challenges all social institutions to contribute to the mental capital development agenda. Leaders of those institutions should expunge stifling rulership tendencies and open up the space towards mental capital development by releasing the potentials embedded in the human capital towards the ultimate goal of wholesome development. The family as the most basic unit of the society should be led in a way that the children are empowered to give their best to the society. A good number of children taking to behaviour injurious to health can be traced to families that are mismanaged. Our religious leaders should help to banish destructive myths, taboos and superstitions that frustrate mental capital development. Every sector of the society should have this agenda in mind as we move into the New Year, just as our political leaders should endeavour to ensure that they take decisions that will create the enabling environment for mental capital development.