Across human history, nothing has changed the destiny of a person,  people, communities, and nations than Knowledge. Knowledge builds empires because the knowledge of a people is the wealth of a people. As a critical component of modern factors of production, a man or a woman with knowledge is a factor in the world of business and commerce. Knowledge empowers!

Join hundreds of innovators, makers, students, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and your fellow citizens in any discipline on a journey to Knowledge.  It would be the best WhatsApp group you would join over the next three months. I live on School Street and that street ends at Knowledge roundabout in the city of Abundance. Hahaha – I feel the breeze of knowledge that liberates the mind, opening an unbounded future with the energy of the eastern rising sun.

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Duke Orsino delivered that line “If music be the food of love, play on”. And in the mouth of Lord Polonius, Shakespeare put it for Hamlet “What do you read, my lord?” Hamlet: “Words, words, words”.

In Music and in Words, knowledge is the oxygen of advancement. Join us from tomorrow at Tekedia Mini-MBA when we sing the music of business strategy, shout the words of innovation and win the FUTURE

Composite comment: Your post on outperforming Nigerians in America shows that DEI is not necessary. Yet, you continue to make a case that Diversity in DEI is important in the United States.

My Response: Nigerians do not need DEI in America.  So, lumping Nigerians into the game of DEI is truly bad to people who need DEI. I mean how do you compare the best graduating students of their classes which America likes to import to the average minorities? Ndubuisi does not need DEI but that does not mean some native minorities in America do not deserve DEI.

That speaker in the video does not get the real issue on DEI: while Nigerians do not need help because we’re privileged, the native minorities need it because they are deprived of many things.

In Nigeria, education is funded from a central purse under the UBE fund which means every child has the same budget in the public school system. In America, that is not the story: it is funded mainly from the local real estate tax. That means where you are born determines your school, and if your school is broken, even if you are good, you will be stunted. 

Nigerians in Nigeria did not have that institutionalized discrimination and that is why Ndubusi despite living in the village had the finest teachers in Nigeria, as great as Kings College’s. In America, that would be impossible as my village tax would not have funded those great teachers even when Kings College would have had more than  enough.

Looking at it from that angle, I am saying the native minorities deserve support via affirmative action or D in diversity because they face many odds that many of us do not have. That you can afford a plane ticket to the US from Nigeria means you are already loaded. And until America funds its public school centrally, we need D in DEI! But no Nigerian in America deserves to benefit from DEI because we’re well more than averages.

Note: Quota system in Nigeria is NOT DEI.  Quota system is bad and terrible because unlike America, everyone in Nigeria has “equal” opportunities at that foundational level; the UBE fund is distributed equally per student! I support DEI due to the institutionalized discrimination even as I abhor the quota system in Nigeria.

Comment on Feed

Comment: But we don’t have equal opportunities in Nigeria! We are resilient people who have learned to make lemonade out of lemon

My Response: “But we don’t have equal opportunities in Nigeria!” – certainly to becoming a president. But at the basic phases of life, everyone has a largely equal public school system. The public schools in Lagos are not better than the ones in Umuahia because the funds are the same. In the US, that is not the case because of the funding structure.

My thesis is that at the basic education level, no child in Nigeria goes through any institutionalized discrimination.  This is not to say there is no discrimination to becoming a president in Nigeria. But here, I am focusing on the workforce which is where this DEI thing takes place most. Because no child is discriminated against, there is indeed no reason for quota in Nigeria. The UBE is the same for all kids equally. The budget for educating every primary and secondary kid is the same. In America, in the public system, it is not the same and that is why DEI needs to adjust for that.

Nigerians in America are the highest working people I have come to know. Go to any university in America, check their PhD students, MBA students, you will see Nigerians. Go to any nursing, PA, etc programs, they speak Nigerian pidgins. There is an accelerating return here where people are propelled to do more and thrive.

Why is that? I think it has to do with our population within limited opportunities. Nigeria is a place you fight in the universities to pay your school fees. I mean you push and push for the opportunity to pay your school fees. You push at bus stops. You always believe that before it gets to you, all the opportunities would be gone. So, there is always a mindset that “you cannot wait, you have to compete”.

Yet, the biggest challenge remains that despite this great success in America, Nigerian Americans have limited political influence in Nigeria.  We run away from the homeland leaders thinking we are doing the right things by doing so. I am hoping that our tenacity, can-do attitude and unalloyed commitment to achieve  personal financial liberty and personal economy will propel us to do more in Nigeria.

If Nigeria’s elections are free and fair, within a decade Nigeria will become a GREAT economic powerhouse. Balanced elections bring legitimacy and when we have that as a culture, these Nigerians will connect back. We must work to improve how we elect political leaders as that will make these Nigerians pay attention. Most are disconnected right now and that is unfortunate!