I’m not quite sure about the choice of title for this post, but the rationale is quite compelling. I have written reasonably extensively on the subject matter of city, nation and/ or place branding covering a range of regions and geographies from Accra (Ghana), to Dundee (Scotland), Gangnam (South Korea), Johannesburg (South Africa), Senegal, Sharjah (united Arab Emirates) to Thailand.

In all of these, one thing that keeps coming to mind is a need for Africa to move away from traditional sectors to celebrating its cultural endowments.

In my most recent article, I did a double take on Jamestown and Sophiatown as male and female cities of culture from an African lens. This has now been accentuated by recent developments, thanks to Chidi Achebe – a LinkedIn contact, highlighting developments in a few African Cities from Enugu, Port Harcourt both in Nigeria to Kisumu (in Kenya).

Now back to Africa, Jamestown (Accra, Ghana), is equally historical. I got wind of the town on my January 2020 trip to the country. Regrettably, however, I missed the opportunity to fit in a trip there into my schedule. Be that as it may, Jamestown, in my view, is much uncelebrated despite its proximity to the capital city of Accra.

As one 2017 UK Guardian article rightly surmises the spirit, “Accra’s Jamestown is electric — it’s like Hackney Wick on steroids…” Although the lighthouse (see image below) wasn’t quite captured in that article, descriptors such as “electric” and “Hackney Wick on steroids” come pretty close.

From the foregoing, I wish to reiterate my point on the need to kickstart the celebration of African Cities of Culture. Perhaps the management of African Universities and those responsible for curriculum development in the region, should embrace factoring this into the curriculum and encourage scholarship in this space.

Conspiracy theories are false assumptions that attempt to explain causes of events or phenomena by insinuating that individuals or groups of persons work secretly to manipulate those events for their personal gains. The conspiracy theories that rocked the whole world recently are those surrounding the causes and spread of COVID-19 as well as the development of its vaccine. Like other conspiracy theories, the ones surrounding COVID-19 found its way into different communities all over the world and caused a lot of controversies. Till date, these conspiracy theories are still preventing many people from going for COVID-19 vaccine.

Conspiracy theories, fortunately, can be beneficial as well. For instance, some of them expose problems in societies that need to be addressed. They also give citizens the opportunities to call the government to order and to curtail the activities of the “powerful” people that were believed to create problems for the people. However, their negative impacts outweigh their positive effects. For instance, religious wars and killings are fuelled by conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories have also led to prejudice, distrust, genocide, witch-hunt, and low participation in politics. This is why it is good to discourage the spread of such theories.

Kindly note that you can be tricked into believing conspiracy theories if you let your guards down. This is because conspiracy theorists manipulate people’s emotions by using special persuasion tricks. They study situations and people’s psychology and use them to fabricate theories that make their lies sound like truth. Since these theories provide illusions of control and safety, those that believe them resist any form of efforts made towards debunking them. This is to say that many of us believe in some conspiracy theories we assumed were the truth. This essay, however, focuses on internal and external factors that make people believe in conspiracy theories.

Factors that Encourage Acceptance of Conspiracies Theories

1. Level of Education: Research has shown that the lower a person’s level of education is, the higher his chances of believing conspiracy theories. This is because those with higher education tend to think more critically and also have more information about concepts.
2. Knowledge: A person that knows little or nothing about a concept or a phenomenon tends to believe whatever he hears about it, so long as it aligns with their ideologies.
3. Information: The quality and quantity of information a person receives influence his susceptibility to conspiracy theories. A person that received little information about an event will believe fallacies about it. On the same hand, if the person is exposed to only negative information, he will also believe conspiracy theories.
4. Thinking Styles: Many people think impulsively while others do theirs analytically. Those that don’t critically evaluate the information they receive tend to believe conspiracy theories easily.
5. Experiences: People that have bad experiences are more likely to believe conspiracy theories than those that haven’t.
6. Attitudes: People with certain attitudes are likely to believe conspiracy theories. For instance, people that never take responsibilities for their actions and those that don’t trust people easily have been discovered to believe conspiracy theories that blame others for their predicaments.
7. Negative Emotions: Some emotions give room for conspiracy theories to thrive. Emotions such as fear, hope, worry, and surprise make people vulnerable and willing to believe whatever makes them feel safe and in control.
8. Religiosity: Religion is a risk factor to conspiracy theory because it encourages unverifiable practices such as prophecies and esotericism. Religious fanatics, therefore, tend to believe religion-related conspiracy theories without verifying the evidence provided by the theorists.
9. Social Class: The poorer a person is, the more he believes conspiracy theories. This is as a result of his economic challenges, poor education, and other external factors that threaten his existence. People at the lower class feel uncertain and unable to control their lives and future; as a result, conspiracy theories give them certainty.

Studiare leverages MindFit’s technology to build a School in the cloud for Africa.

Nigerian edtech startup, Studiare, has secured a partnership with UK-based advanced learning company Y2PG, of MindFit Limited in order to address behavioral and learning gaps in Africa’s education and employment sector. This is contained in an official press release sent to Tekedia Institute. The team has attended Tekedia Institute’s programs.

The partnership announced allows Studiare to incorporate MindFit’s infrastructure in their operations, to take the Y2PG product to market in West Africa as they launch their edtech platform which includes features such as e-Store, publisher, and literary work promotion, looking to develop the educational content and learning character for the African market. Targeting all scholars but currently focused on tertiary and secondary school students across the West African region, Studiare plans its phase one launch to be in May 2021, having been in development for 6 months.

Speaking on the partnership and upcoming launch of Studiare, CEO Faith Nwaobia says, “Studiare is built to scale competencies across Africa’s educational sector and as thus we are delighted to have kick-started our impact process with MindFit. Considering how much results the team has achieved in the UK edtech space we are optimistic that this deal is one that will support Studiare’s right footing to address SDGs 1, 4, & 8.

Nwaobia concludes, “This partnership is a great boost to the Studiare brand, and considering the vital space it covers, I have no doubt of its sustainability. Of course, education is a global product especially when it’s a lifelong solution as well as a highly sort after offer as it is for soft skills in the future of work.”

Still speaking on the partnership, CEO of MindFit, Neville Gant adds, “This partnership means so much to us considering the scope it covers. Providing a digital platform for unrivaled soft skills acquisition which is highly sought after today. We are delighted to collaborate with the Studiare Global brand which is designed to offer innovative edtech solutions making knowledge available anytime to anyone at any time. Studiare School will offer an action-based practical curriculum that is not presently taught in schools.

People should expect a new system of e-learning with full activity modules considering that the Y2PG platform (Mind Fit/Studiare Solutions) runs under the same methodology as a regular classroom, however, it’s purely a school in the cloud where everything you need to learn to build your soft skills and attitude is guided with activity classes. It’s not the regular e-learning platform where answers are stereotyped, rather, you cannot progress without actually practicing each lesson. We call it 5% E-learning 95% E-doing. In Pakistan where this e-learning curriculum has been introduced outside of the UK, many organizations have witnessed improved performance among employees after signing them to study on the platform. Same with many students, professionals, and freelancers who have signed up and have significantly improved their soft skills. We project that the impact of this platform would be greater in Nigeria.“

In conclusion, Neville revealed that “on a financial value rating, this deal is worth more than $300,000 considering the technology that’s being deployed to bring this solution and MindFit is confident that the Studiare model is worth every penny. And if we are to consider its scalability, with the level of success MindFit has been able to achieve in the UK, Pakistan and other countries, in two years from today, this deal would have doubled its value to over $1.5 Million.”