The North & Digital
Societies will only thrive as much as the knowledge available to them, and they will be limited by what they do with that knowledge. – J J. Omojuwa (Author of the Digital Wealth Book)
Have you read the story of the North?
Before and after Sardauna became the premier,
Before Nigeria became independent,
Why majority of out-of-school children are from the North,
How we became so backward in western education,
Why poverty and hunger are pervasive in the North,
Why our streets are filled with helpless children begging for food during school hours?
Have you heard about the colonial masters?
The Secret to their success?
How they conquered our forebears,
The days before Nigeria was formed,
The glorious days of the Caliphate?
In all the instructions to seek knowledge the Almighty Allah (SWT) and the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) mandated believers to seek ‘Ilmul-Hali عِلْمُ الْحَا لِ ’ that is the knowledge that allows you to function competitively in the generation you are born.
As at the beginning of 2019 there are 13.2 million out of school children in Nigeria, the highest in the world, over 80% of this children are in Nigeria’s northern states of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Kano, sixty percent of that population are girls only. Out of every 100 out-of-school-children, Over 70% are in the North.
The Industrial Revolution passed without us keying into it, now the Information Age is here, and our parents and leaders are making the same mistake again,
This time around it’s costlier,
This time around it’s deadlier,
The secret to the white man’s victory over the African is TECHNOLOGY!
We cannot afford to be had, took and done for like the past,
This time around it’s DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY!
It is software, applications, soft-skills and invincible, wars are being fought and won without a single bullet being fired (Cyber-warfare).
Digital is shaping the world of tomorrow and changing the nature of the future of life and work. We must anticipate and prepare for the future of our generations, corporate bodies are scampering and taking measures to stay relevant as the digital revolution’s disrupts their ecosystem.
Children in other climes are learning coding/programming in primary school, In the North even University students don’t know how to code, or even what coding means.They use the latest iPhone, Samsung and Huawei yet they don’t understand a single line of the code that runs this phones, that makes the devices work. A classic case of consumerism and dependence. Not that their southern counterparts are far ahead, but at least they are awake to the challenge/opportunity and are making moves to mitigate against them, In-fact they are the major players in this field.
In 2019 alone, Facebook’s revenue amounted to ($70.7 billion) US dollars, and Nigeria’s total budget for 2020 is 10.59 trillion naira ($35bn), and Facebook is just an App, that was started in a hostel room by a boy who dropped out of school, and doesn’t have a degree, only desire to learn and practice. That boy can be an Almajiri in the streets of Kano today.
So far the most prominent application of Digital that the Northerners are engaging in is Social Media; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Whatsapp.
Take for example Twitter, the demography of Northerners there form the Arewa-twitter bloc, famous for trending periodically on Twitter, their strengths are mostly hinged on lifestyle and small scale entrepreneurship, very few can boast of over 100k followership.
There are so many Africans with influence on Twitter, some even have more followers than the founder of the app Jack Dorsey, yet all it takes is a single click of a button by Jack or his employee to end the entire influence of any influential person on this app, without recourse or explanation, It has happened recently, and all they can do is whine and open another account to start afresh.
The most in demand digital skills for which there is a serious dearth in Nigeria are as follows, if you can be good in any of these skills even if you don’t have a degree, you will find gainful employment.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI),
- User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX) Design,
- Digital Marketing,
- Data Science,
- Design Thinking,
- Cloud computing,
- Digital Project Management,
- Machine Learning,
- Mobile Development,
- SEO/SEM Marketing,
- Data Visualization,
- Data Engineering,
- Cyber-security,
- Cloud Computing/AWS,
- Blockchain Technology, and
- Internet of Things (IOT)
These are all in line with Technological trends of 2020 of 5G Network, Autonomous driving cars, AI-as-a-service, Extended reality (Virtual, Augmented, Mixed Reality), Blockchain Technology.
How do we learn all these foreign skills?
We are lucky. We live in an age where a determined learner is more resourceful and knowledgeable than an M.Sc. holder in the same field, because a traditional certificate holder is mostly a theory person with little actual practical knowledge, while you on the other hand can attend The two largest Universities in the world, that do not require you to pass WAEC/NECO, or a minimum of 6 credits including English & Mathematics, nor a first degree with 2.1 or 2.2.
All you require of you is willingness to learn, the two largest Universities in the world are YOU-TUBE & GOOGLE.
Every one of the aforementioned courses you wish to learn is thought there basically for Free. while you can also study this courses at very minimal or no cost using any of the following Online Education Sites;
- Coursera
- edX
- Khan Academy
- Udemy
- iTunesU Free Courses
- MIT OpenCourseWare
- Stanford Online
- Codecademy
- Open Culture Online Courses
The North is in its present state of disrepair because our forebears (Parents and Traditional Rulers) saw Western education as a taboo and a curse, they refused to accept the knowledge and opportunities western education provided despite being the prevailing knowledge of that time, they delayed and procrastinated, until all other regions got far ahead of us, in other words they misinterpreted the Prophet’s instruction, there mistakes have cost us dearly.
It is an undisputable fact that; Islam is the most prized possession of a Northerner, and if this poverty and illiteracy rate continues, Islam will be lost in the North either to other religions or to extremisms like Boko Haram, Anwaru etc., this is in line with the Prophet’s saying
كَادَالْفَقْرُأَنْيَكُوْنَ كُفْرًا
Poverty can lead to disbelief.
And this is evident in the way Muslims are being converted to other religions lately in Northern states.
Northerners! Wake up before it’s too late, else the repercussions will be disastrous.
Teach yourself and your kids coding and programming languages at their tender age, introduce basic coding and programming languages in your schools, you never know which Almajiri boy will be your Mark Zuckerberg.
“Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed by it” -Unknown
Farooq Gajo 