A Time When Natural Resource Export Will Be Extinct, By ‘Tope Fasua

How much have we trained our minds and thoughts on the problems of the future? How well will Africa be able to respond to the tectonic shifts in economics, and indeed sociopolitical permutations that this revolution will bring about or is bring about already? Do we just sit on our hands and pretend nothing is going on as usual?

The Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Wetin ‘consign’ us with that? One you may ask. Well a lot. The same way it eventually ‘consigned’ us decades and centuries after the First, Second and Third Industrial Revolutions happened. Yes, it ‘consigned’ us, first into ships, where we were transported thousands of kilometres to strange lands and sold for less than the cost of cattle. It ‘consigned’ us, when we used our own monies, sold off our family property

, to obtain visas into Europe and America. It ‘consigned’ us to trek across the Sahara into Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, via Mauritania, Mali and Niger. It ‘consigned’ us to be permanent dregs of the earth, slaves to humanity, the security men and packers of dirt and waste, all over the world. It has ‘consigned’ us ever since.

Only posterity knows what the Fourth Industrial Revolution will ‘consign’ us to if we don’t take heed and step up to the plate.

For one, I can say that it is the age were the export of natural resources will be archaic, if not outlawed. So for as long as Nigeria plans for the export of raw materials, we should take caution that a point is coming where we would not be able to earn a single cent from those products. Sounds farfetched but it’s real. People all over the world have been thinking about this reality. And like before, those who simply sit on their hands and await the culmination of those thoughts and actions get the short end of the stick. Deservedly. This world is pivoted on thought, and we have entered the age of thought. The age of intelligence. Everything around us today is a product of someone’s thinking process. If we cannot register our presence in this milieu of intelligence, the least we can do is to show the world that we understand and are gradually following through. The world will soon become even more impatient with laggards and those who are not ready to contribute towards its progress. If by then rogue elements cause wars and seek the extermination of those societies which are not ready to contribute, the worst that will happen is that history will record such an event as another world war.

First some history: The first industrial revolution was powered by steam engines. It was the time when Europeans could sail easily across thousands of miles at sea and capture people like us. It was the time when mass production for the needs of people took root. We were nowhere to be found, except as victims. The second revolution took place with electricity. Productivity soared even more. People became more efficient and could even work at night. The world integrated some more. It was a marked departure from the past. The third revolution was the age of the computer. Information technology brought a boost that was hitherto unthinkable. It is the reason you can read this from wherever you are. The world became much more interconnected. At best, we bought into this revolution at great cost. Our contribution as a society, tended towards zero. We sure have a few leading lights, but if their efforts are not coordinated by society and presented as our collective, they often don’t count. Contribution to the revolution goes far beyond the ability of some of us to make millions of dollars selling an App to Microsoft, or making enough money to show up on a Forbes richlist. It is about how much has this new thinking become ingrained in our society. We have much work to do.

Is Africa included in this new shift? If Europe and the Americas are thinking of the next level – and getting tired of capitalism and the quest for wealth but thinking broadly about human sustainability – when will countries like Nigeria dig themselves, first out of the hole of inefficiency, corruption and barbarism, to join this new thinking?

So what is this Fourth Industrial Revolution? The World Economic Forum says it will bring together ‘digital, physical, and biological systems’ of the world. They say everything is in the human brain and they the revolution will unlock the ‘black box’ of the that human brain. Mr. Stewart Wallis of the New Economics Foundation based in the United Kingdom says it is about different relation between human beings, the planet, life, work, and the world at large, through the defining of a new economic model, away from the jaded talk of capitalism and communism/socialism, into one where more equity is achieved by focusing the brain on meeting the basic needs of every human on planet Earth. He believes the Fourth Industrial Revolution will focus more on health and education, and the maximisation of human wellbeing, in a way that creates a new story of how we want to live going forward. Is Africa included in this new shift? If Europe and the Americas are thinking of the next level – and getting tired of capitalism and the quest for wealth but thinking broadly about human sustainability – when will countries like Nigeria dig themselves, first out of the hole of inefficiency, corruption and barbarism, to join this new thinking? Are our leaders ready to jettison the idea that they are better off than the led, and have been given the permission by no less than ‘God’ to oppress the unfortunate hoi polloi? Does the thinking of our leaders lend itself to a society of equity and general human dignity? Personally, I don’t think so. We are not even tending towards reinventing ourselves.

Ellen MacArthur of the Ellen MacArthur UK Foundation says innovations like 3-D printing and the leveraging on Information Technology will lead to the decoupling of economic growth from resource constraints. This is where the alarm bells start ringing. Already, it doesn’t matter what country has what resource. But it will rapidly get worse. Countries in Africa boasting of their resource endowments have their heads stuck in the sand (pardon the pun). I have always suspected that the whole rhetoric about Africa being the most resourced continent is at best a decoy – something that prevents Africans from deep thinking – and at worst, an indication that ours is the most exploited continent, even as others keep their best resources close to their chests. Anyhow, natural resources are decreasing in importance. Ellen here says that this new industrial revolution rests on innovation and creativity, leading to things like the recovery of materials which are fed back into the economy as productive resources. This is the age where recycling will be big and little will waste even as each resource is put to different surprising uses. This is the age to THINK!