My name is Tayo Solagbade, and I founded the Self-Development Academy(SDAc) to help individuals and groups of all types develop and implement strategies to successfully equip themselves to achieve their set goals every time. In this article, I provide insights into why SDAc chooses to use Nigeria as the main point of reference.

Nigeria Is A Peculiar Place. SDAc(Self-Development Academy Limited) Is Nigerian.

Nigeria needs Nigerians to solve her problems. We can borrow ideas from other societies, but only Nigerians who have a sound understanding of the complex nature of social factors influencing the highly unpredictable, unusual events that occur daily, can successfully adapt such ideas to develop lasting, sustainable solutions that will make life better for the average Nigerian.

Since I started out as an entrepreneur, to pursue my dream of providing Self-Development education for people passionately driven to be their best at what they do, I have come to the sobering realisation that Nigeria, my country, has many social peculiarities that severely limit the ability of even her most gifted and competent citizens to follow an honest path to achieve authentic and reproducible success.

Let me explain by drawing a comparison with developed societies. Americans for instance have many seasoned experts and practitioners dedicated to the work of developing the human resources and intellectual capital of their country. They’ve been at it for years – decades in fact. So have other developed nations. We in Africa have always trailed – many of us very far – behind. Business Schools and universities in Europe, America and Asia yearly churn out socially relevant research findings that make life better for their people – many times even for us in Africa!

In contrast, our business schools typically focus on recycling learning events from their overseas counterparts for us here – even when the socio-cultural context of application is inappropriate! Research if at all done by these business schools, is hardly ever relevant to the needs of our immediate environment.

I have often wondered…Why it is that the latest way of doing anything always comes from overseas? Why can’t we have gurus from this part of the world telling the rest of the world what the future holds, where we should all be looking for better results etc?(We have a few gurus doing this but most, on closer examination are often not home-grown, and have benefited from considerable exposure to developed societies).

My answer: Because too many of us Nigerians living in Nigeria, are intellectually indolent – too lazy to engage in sustained intellectual pursuit of continuous improvements in our various fields. That’s why we are content to sit back and accept whatever comes from the developed societies – even when sometimes what is being sent to us was created using material obtained directly from, or around us! The truth is that Nigeria and many African countries lack organisations that provide support systems toward enabling better quality of life for people living in them.

The SDAc Is NOT An NGO, But Will Facilitate Work Done By Them And Others.

The SDAc is profit-focussed, and NOT a charity. We have however developed a strategy to enable us empower different classes of people by leveraging our creative digital business products and services delivery arm – CB Solutions(Creative Business Solutions). This strategy will enable us provide interested individuals and groups(including the disadvantaged and/or needy) with access to our coaching, educational and empowerment programs at highly affordable rates. To put it simply, we will offer our commercial clients attractively bundled/priced products and services in exchange for their active contribution to the successful pursuit of our people development and empowerment goals.

The SDAc aims to explore, discover, document and offer to interested persons, tested and proven solutions to the various challenges faced by individual Nigerians(in and out of paid employment), many of whom currently feel they have no chance of ever making their dreams come true. I have seen different international charity organisations and donor agencies dole out large dollar grants towards various so-called development programmes, but as most who live in Nigeria and Africa know, very little sustainable results have been achieved as a result of the work done by these bodies. Not because they are not sincere or fail to work hard, but because the approach adopted was inappropriate.

I am a Nigerian – and so are my wife and kids. I do not want my children fleeing their country to seek success and fulfillment elsewhere. I realise that no foreign organisation or country can really truly help my country empower its people as well as we could if we really tried. We need Nigerians and Africans to develop their own solutions to the peculiar challenges of their societies, and STOP waiting – with cupped hands – on developed nations to hand-out various aids which only increase our dependence on them.

As a person who has all my life used self-taught skills to get ahead in virtually every area of endeavour I have ventured into, I have become convinced that people who truly desire to take their destiny into their own hands cannot afford to WAIT for their government or that of other countries to give them the support they need. This is because the reality from past experiences is that people in government are not likely to do the right things for as many people as need it – at least the way Africa is today. Every person who desires to achieve her dreams must be prepared to seize the initiative and look inwards to find the will and courage to pursue that objective with perseverance. Every person who wishes to live a future of their dreams must practise Self-Development.

I believe that if more individuals in our society begin to practice Self-Development the way SDAc will show them, it will only be a matter of time before we have a rapidly growing army of multi-skilled, adaptable, highly motivated and successful people who know why it is important to multiply themselves in others so as to reduce the latter’s dependence on them and so make the society flourish. That’s what happens in developed societies – and that’s why many Africans want to go there! I KNOW that we can create a similar environment here if more people learn how to become authentic successes who know how to make their success contagious and who give back tangibly to the society that makes them, so that others may benefit.

"If It’s LEGAL And Can Work In Nigeria, Then It’ll Work ANYWHERE!"

"..the biggest challenge facing most African nations is to creatively adapt ideas to their unique environment.." – Mr. Patrick Boateng, Adviser for Africa, US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at the African Internet Summit and Exhibition(AFRINET) 2002, held in Abuja, Nigeria.

Lastly, because I believe Nigeria in many ways represents to a great extent the variety of what can be found across the African continent, and also because I know that the peculiarities of the environment extant in Nigeria present more daunting challenges than will be found in most other places, I am convinced that any solution successfully implemented here will be easily adapted to other places which are burdened with less limiting social circumstances. Nigeria for SDAc is therefore like a test-center. From here, solutions that can help other societies(developing or developed) will be conceived based on (socially relevant and practical) research/experience, then tested, and if proven useful disseminated to areas they can provide sustainable "use-value". That’s why we say: "If it’s LEGAL, and can work in Nigeria, then it’ll work ANYWHERE!"

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(This article wss rriginally written/e-published on 22nd June 2005 via www.spontaneousdevelopment.com