Worldviews - Why they matter and how they create reality
Opinion
By Kingsley Moghalu
How #Worldviews shape our lives:
A worldview, very simply defined, means how we see the world and our place in it. It is the sum of the answers to questions such as: Who are we? (Or, at an individual level, who am I?) Where have we come from? Where are we going?. How do we get there (strategy)? What are our (or my) guiding values? Etc. The answers to these questions of how we see the world and our place in it shape and determine what we come to perceive as reality, both in our individual lives and in the lives of groups such as countries or races.
China and Britain fought each other in the famous Opium War of 1839-42. China resisted the British opium trade, and the latter was determined to carry on with it. China lost the war to Britain, which annexed Hong Kong. This was a humiliation that made the Chinese determine to rise and challenge global domination by the West.
One result of Rising China for us in Nigeria is that cheaply produced/priced Chinese imports, combined with a generator economy, have made local manufacturing uncompetitive. So we can’t manufacture for export to earn forex, & instead import – at high forex rates as Naira has little value.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine originated in Vladimir Putin’s worldview, which has been fixated on returning of Russian power on the world stage. This worldview comes from his sense of the Soviet Union’s humiliation from the collapse of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 & western victory in the Cold War, which created for the next couple of decades a “unipolar world” dominated by the West. Putin has long carried this chip on his shoulder.
Today Africa including Nigeria, and much of the world, suffers from high food prices. Ukraine exported $3 billion worth of agricultural products to Africa in 2020. 50% of which was wheat and 30% maize. This supply has been disrupted.
Worldviews and the actions that derive from them have practical consequences. These consequences can be positive and negative depending on where we stand to perceive or feel their impact. What is Nigeria’s worldview that will drive our rise in the world? This is one aspect of leadership that cannot be delegated.
Nigeria will rise only when a leader with a deep philosophical worldview, the ability to turn it into policy and results, emerges. This is based on forward projection and vision, and is often the product of deep thinking backed up by statecraft.
This is the depth of the Nigerian and African leadership challenge.
KN
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