Still on the disinterest from northern Nigeria

My friend, Adamu Tilde, raised some thought-provoking comments on the problems associated with mentoring in northern Nigeria after I wrote a piece on the disinterest of northerners in many aspects of the socio-economy, which was published on this space last week. Tilde noted that the problem of mentoring lies in the unwillingness of the privileged and educated northerners like us to mentor their younger ones. He posits that the southerners, unlike the northerners, are always on the forefront to mentor their younger ones. But I see it differently.

First, I think Tilde’s comment summarizes the mentoring problem in the first place; that mentors should be the ones to look for mentees as opposed to the vice-versa. I am not sure anyone fit for mentoring will be unwilling to mentor others who go out to seek for their help. This is because it is an honour to mentor and there is always fulfilment in mentoring. As a personal example, in between my tight schedules, I am presently mentoring someone who will hopefully be starting graduate studies in a US university in 2020. I also take time to provide advice to many people who seek for it, on areas I am reasonably experienced. But I do not go out on my own to look for people to mentor as I have my life to focus on.

Second, I believe that there is a minimum bottom-line that must be met by a mentee before they approach a mentor. Part of the bottom-line ensures that I should not be expected to do what is supposed to be basic homework for the mentee. For example, nobody should request for my help in searching for universities that offer so-and-so course so that they can apply for it. I believe that anybody interested in furthering their education should at the minimum be curious enough to search for prospective institutions based on their intended course of study. I currently teach both undergraduate and graduate courses in geology, and I coordinate a couple of activities in the university including my department’s undergraduate projects/dissertations. Thus, a while ago, an undergraduate student approached me with a topic asking me to help him find out from the department’s collections (which by the way should be in the library) if the topic he was proposing was previously researched upon. I told the student that it was not my responsibility as a staff and/or project coordinator to find researchable topics for him. And I advised him that the minimum expectation from him is to be able to find topics that are researchable and that nobody should do that for him; not me, not his supervisor. Therefore, young people must know that they should not leave their homework to others as doing so is outright laziness.

Third, I believe that all the time, it is the mentee who should spur the interest of mentoring from the mentor. Almost all my mentors are northerners and I discovered them in my quest for mentoring and they have been very accommodating and very willing to mentor. But none of them discovered me without my effort. For example, when I wanted mentoring on how I could further my education outside Nigeria, I found Farooq Kperogi and Moses Ochonu who have experience in what I wanted to be mentored on. I discovered Kperogi and Ochonu; they did not discover me. And Kperogi too ended up in a US graduate school and subsequently as a professor in America through the advice of the late Bayero University academic, Professor Mike Egbon, who earned a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kperogi described Egbon as a very sound and versatile scholar whom he admired during his undergraduate studies in Kano. Then one day, he met Egbon and told him to advise him on how he too could become like Egbon. Kperogi also made sure that his undergraduate honours thesis was supervised by Egbon because of his affinity for the man. And the rest is now history. Ochonu also attended Bayero University for undergraduate studies, and he did not end up as a Vanderbilt University professor by mere luck. He showed interest in being mentored by the late Professor Phil Shear, an American who spent many years teaching history at Bayero University.

Fourth, it is important to state that I have several other mentors. One of them, from whom I learnt a lot, was a top government official in Nigeria, whom I discovered without necessarily waiting for him to discover me. And the logic for this is simple: I gain everything by discovering a mentor and being mentored by them, and they lose nothing by not discovering me and not mentoring me.

Finally, and most remarkably, I believe that the minimum expectation of a person who desires mentoring is for them to at least understand that they must provide the first push toward achieving their dreams. They must first identify their interests, and they must go out to look for mentors who can mentor them on those interests. As a young person, it is vital to know that nobody will come and mentor you because you expect them to understand that you need mentoring. Life is a bit more complex than that. And it is your life, not theirs. And the world, both mentoring and outside mentoring does not work that way. You must show interest in yourself before people will show interest in you.