Growing up in Lagos, I walked past massive incinerators lining the Mile 2–Orile stretch near Festac Town. Similar refuse burning plants dotted other parts of Lagos and across Nigeria's landscape.
Government promoted them as modern solutions to Nigeria's waste crisis. Within years, most had crumbled into disrepair or sat completely abandoned.
Some were torn down. Others, ironically, burned to the ground themselves.
As a young person observing this, I couldn't understand the paradox. How did a fix become part of the problem?
Years later, the answer became clearer. It wasn't about lacking ideas or talent.
The real issue was adaptation. Solutions copied from elsewhere rarely account for local weather, waste types, maintenance capacity, or how people actually behave.
That lesson shaped how I see progress today. Innovation can spark real change or wasteful failure.
Organisations across Nigeria constantly copy foreign structures, policies, and technologies wholesale. They rarely examine why those approaches succeeded in their original contexts.
The outcome? Busy activity without results.
Money spent with no real value created.
Two wrong ideas drive this cycle. First, people believe creativity belongs only to artists, musicians, programmers, and inventors.
Parents hearing "creativity" imagine painting classes or robotics workshops. But that's only a sliver of what creativity actually is.
Teachers finding better ways to reach students—that's creative. Nurses redesigning patient care processes—that's creative too.
Customer service workers solving recurring complaints demonstrate creativity. Managers boosting team productivity show it as well.
Creativity isn't about artistic talent at all. It's fundamentally about solving real problems and building genuine value.
The second misconception treats creativity as merely brainstorming. Ideas matter, sure, but ideas are cheap.
Saying "we should do things differently" doesn't make anyone creative. It just means they're frustrated.
Nigerians excel at spotting problems. We complain about corrupt officials, erratic power, reckless drivers, poor service, and lazy workers constantly.
Identifying a problem and fixing it are entirely different matters. One requires no special skill whatsoever.
Real creativity means something specific. It's groups of people taking responsibility for their own challenges and difficulties.
They brainstorm multiple pathways forward. They build those ideas into practical, workable solutions with real teeth.
Then they actually execute. That execution creates genuine value for their communities and themselves.
Research backs this broader understanding up. Studies show most genuine breakthroughs come from ordinary people solving everyday obstacles.
The spark that drives real progress isn't inspiration alone. It's people committed to making change stick in their own contexts.
