Inside Africa with Benjamin Okonkwo

In an exclusive one-on-one interview, HH People recently spoke with Ben Okonkwo, the Monitoring and Evaluation Manager at the Tony Elumelu Foundation. We explored the complexities of travel, culture, and working throughout Africa, discussing the subtle nuances and the art of maintaining a balance between maintaining the African identity in a highly globalised society.
Hear it from Ben.

AA for HHPeople: My first question would be “As somebody who gets to travel across Africa, what are the things that are most striking to you?”
BEN: I don’t want to sound like someone who always starts from the negative spots. *laughs*. First of all, I began my travels across Africa from the Sahel region, trying to work my way across the conflict states that we had in the Sahel region and of course, we know that’s the region that is most badly hit with conflict issues and insurgencies and all of that. I was working with a peace-building organisation and our interest was mainly how we were documenting the drivers of conflict, and how these conflicts are being resolved across communities. At the time, the major issue was moving around. How do you get around African countries? This is one of the toughest terrains to travel through because travel routes are not properly defined. You have to probably take a flight to one West African country all the way to North Africa and then come back again to somewhere just next to you. Just because you want to connect and have that trip. It’s very challenging to travel across Africa.
I think that’s one of the first things that you get oriented into as you travel across Africa. You might have to compensate for some of these struggles to get through your job. So, it must come from a place of deep passion for you to be able to work across the continent.
The second thing is that you must have a very open mind about accepting people and their culture, because the moment you travel just outside your country, to the next country, you walk into an entirely different culture and a different mindset. You can just as much as enter into an airport and it begins to tell a story about where you have walked into.
For instance, going into Ghana you would think “Ohh Ghana is somewhat close to Nigeria. There won’t be much difference.” But it will blow your mind! The kind of things you will see just taking a step into Ghana. I think the biggest thing for me is getting to understand that we are not alone in the challenges and the things that we seem to face within our own country and within our own community. It just finds a way to express itself in different ways and form in other communities. And then, some of the things we even find so difficult to deal with have been conquered by some other communities. Very culturally, very locally, they have been able to deal with it, but because there is not much transfer of technology going on between African countries and communities, we don’t get to bring in some of the solutions that are already available.
My most amazing trip so far has been in Rwanda, and you can see the journey from the genocide to what Rwanda has become now. If you read it on paper, you will think that it’s just someone trying to make a country look good or tell us a good story. But it’s beyond the story. You will almost think that a new generation of Rwandans are now what you’re seeing with a different mindset and with how they have transferred, you know, that experience into an energy that they can use to build the nation is magical.

AA for HHPeople: So what are some of the most enriching cultural experiences that you’ve had while travelling? Memorable encounters or particular traditions that left a lasting impression?
BEN: Interesting! On my first visit to Kenya, I realised that my surname “Okonkwo” actually means a very wealthy man in Kenya. *laughs*

AA for HHPeople: Interesting! *laughs* The Masai? Which of the tribes?
BEN: I can’t remember now. I think I will check, but it means a very wealthy man and I was amazed. It means an entirely different thing in my own culture in Igboland. Of course, in Igbo land, it means a man who is born on Nkwo market day.
But over there, it means that you’re a very wealthy person, a well-known person, or a very influential person. Same name, same spelling, and same pronunciation, but it means entirely different things. And I felt like my name is a lot better in Kenya than it is in Nigeria, you know? And then another thing is that everywhere you say it in Kenya you are giving this level of respect because you just called your surname.
Here in Nigeria, I think that the biggest reference you can give to that name is from Things Fall Apart.

AA for HHPeople: It simply means you can easily pass for a Kenyan.
BEN: *laughs* In fact, I don’t want to sound unpatriotic at the moment, but I feel a lot of welcoming feeling whenever I step into Kenya and simply because of that name, you know, and I like to travel there a lot. Kenyans I would say are very welcoming people. They are not as energetic as you would find Nigerians, but they are very dedicated people.

AA for HHPeople: Right. A lot of Africans and people of African descent, especially people who find themselves outside the continent struggle for identity and representation. How do you see the concept of the African identity evolving especially when you consider the vast diversity? Nigeria alone has over 500 tribes and over 700 languages. How do you see the concept of the identity of being African evolving?
BEN: I think that you just mentioned one of Africa’s biggest opportunities besides the youth population. The next biggest opportunity is the diversity that exists across Africa. Some of the core things within this diversity are the culture, the language, and the identity. But one thing I must say is that the moment you leave Africa and you go to other continents and you meet another African man, the first thing you hear is ‘my brother’. We all just become brothers.
You know and I think that if I’m not exaggerating 70 to 80% of Africans in Diaspora would always want to come home. If you do a survey, there is a large population of people out there who would like to identify back with their African heritage, and people who want to come back and connect with their roots and find a way to promote whatever it is that their heritage has to offer.
I think this is a big flex.
The missed opportunity will be not being able to control the narrative in terms of how it evolves and how we are harnessing it, learning from the mistakes that other continents have made, who have lost their identity in trying to globalise and modernise.
As much as I believe that we shouldn’t get isolated, we should also constantly realise that if we lose every other thing, or if we trade every other thing in this process of growth, it shouldn’t be the heritage that we have in terms of our cultural diversity. We don’t need to lose our language because we want to connect to the world. For instance, I appreciate the Yoruba people a lot for this, particularly in Nigeria. The way they have constantly kept the core part of the respect that comes with their culture.

AA for HHPeople: How do we turn it into an advantage? How do we take this diversity and make people talk about it? What about diversity makes us stronger?
BEN: There is a benefit in this diversity, and I think that we will be the first continent to be able to harness it because a lot of continents missed out on it. Look at America, they basically lost those local identities that they had from the beginning, and I think they evolved too fast for themselves. Some of them who still remember what it was like to be Americans back in the days would want to go back and you know, reignite the power of those diversities that existed from the beginning.

AA for HHPeople: It’s almost as if with every generation of Africans, the previous generations always complain that the culture or the elements of the culture are weakening. One school of thought argues that culture itself, what we consider as a strong culture evolved to become that strong culture, and that culture itself is ever-changing. The culture that we had 100 years ago evolved from another 100 years prior. Some people argue that we should just let all the influences affect it and then let culture just evolve naturally. Then there are the conservationists who think that culture should be preserved. So where would you place yourself between these ideologies?
BEN: So, I personally think that you may not be able to control evolution. Regardless, I don’t want to go into conspiracy theories, but you cannot place a restriction. I think some people are too micro in their thinking to believe that every other thing must remain in one state.
Some of the things that make us who we are culturally may evolve, but there are certain things we should retain.
There are certain things that are custodians of culture. Like you would say in some places that the traditional leadership or rulership of a community are the custodians of the culture of that community doesn’t necessarily mean that things would not change. When new insights come and then we see that old ways weren’t working, regarding this, things may need to be discontinued or allowed to change. But generally, our values should not be watered down in any way. If that happens, we’ve lost identity and culture wouldn’t mean anything if the identity is lost.

AA for HHPeople: Right. In your opinion, what are some of the biggest misconceptions that people outside the continent have about Africa? For me, it’s the way foreigners think of Africa as one country.
BEN: Yeah, I think that the first one that jumps right off the top of my head is the thinking that Africans need help. Africans do not need help. I don’t like it when leaders are calling for help in Africa. I think that during the pandemic it became obvious what it means to need help as a nation.

AA for HHPeople: Hmm. Right, right.
BEN: Some countries actually came out during the pandemic, I think was Italy, and they said, “We need help.” That’s what it means to need help. Africa is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for the world to reinvent itself. For instance, the climate is changing, and Africa is the next continent to get industrialised. The only way to move the hand of the clock back is to make Africa industrialise in the best way possible. The world needs Africa to industrialise for the world to achieve its potential everywhere else.
The second thing there is assuming that leadership is missing in Africa. It’s not. It’s not true.
How do I put it? When people beam the lights on Africa, they look at the wrong spectrum. For instance, the work that Nigeria has done in the creative space within the past decade is crazy. We’ve found a way to penetrate the viewing screen of everyone in the world. It would amaze you to know that in other spaces Africans are showing immense leadership that is not being seen but the assumption out there is that “Africa needs leadership”. Africa is showing leadership, but the world is paying attention to the failures in leadership and not paying attention to the great successes that are coming out from Africa as leaders.

AA for HHPeople: That’s an amazing way to look at it. That’s very insightful. You talked about what African creatives are doing especially on the global scale.
And so my next question will be what role do you believe storytelling would play in preserving and basically exporting the African heritage?
BEN: Storytelling for me, because of the nature of my job as well, is something that I believe is the biggest tool for mental shift and perception change which we have so underutilised. Part of my contribution to the ongoing project of the EU engagement in Africa or the Sahel region is that I had to tell the EU “Hey! A lot of the work that you have done, was done using weak government institutions that in themselves lacked integrity and the reflection of your work was seen through the lens of these institutions, The fact that you pipeline intervention through institutions that are not trusted locally, these institutions have robbed-on that lack of trust in the EU’s ability to influence the region. So, if you would want to reinvent yourself within this region, you have to let people know and see what the EU is doing.”

BEN: That means there is a huge role for storytelling within any intervention. People need to know what we’re doing. Storytelling has to come back as a central strategy, and nobody can tell our story better than we would. If we leave a vacuum for untold stories, people tell their versions of it.
You know how someone produces a movie and says “I’ve landed in Africa”, the first thing they show is probably one place that looks so undeveloped and nobody ever cares to show the big areas. There should be a way you sanction some of these things, as it doesn’t truly tell the story of Africa. Someone should call them to order because the more they continue to, spread this misinformation, it becomes very counterproductive to the work that we are trying to do.
For instance, back in the day, we used to watch home movies, right? I was telling someone a story and I said the influx of Igbos into Lagos was actually very well influenced by home movies in Nigeria, and the person was curious to know why. And I told him that in those days, 20 years back, when you’re watching home movies, the moment a young person in the Eastern part of the country is done with school, his first attempt into a better life is to go to Lagos.

AA for HHPeople: Go to Lagos! go to Lagos! *laughs*
BEN: And when uncle is successful and returns from the city, the city you hear he is coming from is Lagos. So, the attraction towards Lagos was influenced a whole lot by the home movies that we watched. Before I made my first attempt to visit Lagos, I had already seen Lagos as a very successful place. In fact, it’s a land of opportunities, once you come in, you can literally pick money from the street. It’s because of the kind of storytelling that our creatives put out there.
And they told it, not knowing that they’re contributing to a mind shift that is going to make people want to migrate to Lagos. This is the power of storytelling, and it can be replicated for Africa consciously by everyone realising that whatever we put out there representing Africa kind of shapes the way the world sees it.

AA for HHPeople: I’ve never ever thought about that, but you mention it, that’s absolutely true. We have talked a lot about some of the differences across Africa and Africa’s differences from the rest of the world. What are the similarities that you would say exist between African people or African culture or on the African continent?
BEN: Recently, I had a press conference in Spain where I was speaking to a couple of new colleagues within the development space and then we dabbled into a discussion about how African Governments are responding to the reality of climate change. The truth is that the private sector would lead this conversation and in terms of getting the kind of commitment that is needed, I believe that the government institutions are not at the same level across the continent.
In Nigeria, the private sector is stronger, and the government institutions are playing catch up but when you go to countries like Rwanda, the government is leading and the private sector is still trying to catch up. In East Africa, that seems to be the story of the day and I think that it has shaped the way development has come in that area because the government is taking the lead but when you come to West Africa, you see the private sector taking the lead and the government trying to even play catch ups.
The development styles for the different regions are not the same. It’s not the same, so a successful intervention in East Africa would require a partnership with the government but a successful intervention in West Africa will require a strong partnership with the private sector.

AA for HHPeople: My next question is along the route of where the differentiation ends. A lot of people would ask “Are you first Nigerian or are you first African?” This easily cascades down to “Are you first Nigerian or are you first Yoruba?” “Are you first Yoruba or are you first an Osun indigene?”. So it’s almost like we can keep going and keep going until we reach families.
BEN: We can’t keep doing that because, in the end, the question is about what the common man wants. That’s the lowest denomination of humanity – a person. Not a person with 10 legs or a person with four legs, just a person. That’s the lowest denomination. Then differentiations might just be more about how you see things or your best food or are you a vegetarian?
Those are too micro. The most important thing there is the lowest denominator and that’s the human, the being, the person, the individual.

AA: Yeah, absolutely.
BEN: If the agenda for every individual is to make progress, it wouldn’t matter if I’m doing it in the context of a Yoruba person, or a context of a Fulani person.

AA for HHPeople: We are coming to the end of this interview, but I just have a couple of questions left. How do you see the younger generation of Africans engaging with and basically reshaping traditional values and practices, especially with the rapid urbanisation that most of Africa is going through and the big influence of globalisation that young people are exposed to?
BEN: I think that’s about the toughest question that you’ve asked me because it’s a case of the egg and the chicken, which one came first? And I don’t think anyone has been able to answer that question satisfactorily.
Young people are influencing a culture that is also shaping them as young people. So, you’re looking at something that has influenced you and something you are part of. Changing, and influencing something that is constantly shaping you from within is one of the most difficult things that you can ask of a person.
There has to be an intentional blueprint or a pathway for a young person to contribute to change in Africa. I just want to leave it at change. Change might be cultural, or economic, but there has to be a road map set by some smart people as to how a young person influenced by this community can make an effective contribution to the change process of this same community.
I heard, not verified, that regardless of the governor we have in Lagos, the Lagos Development Plan is the Lagos Development Plan. A bit of tweaks here and there because of changing context, but the plan has to be followed.
What is the pathway for a young person to contribute to the growth and development of Africa? Is there such a pathway? Because people seem to be finding their own pathway and then come back to say, “I’m giving back”. The method that we are used to is that when you have made it, you start to raise others. But only a very few get to reach that level of success, and they in turn try to raise a very few.
The bulk of the other people do not yet know in what form or sense they are contributing to the community, because there is no blueprint or a road map that is set or a mindset that you have to contribute in the building process. Most people believe it’s a destination, that there’s a point you get to in life and you start to contribute to your community, but in the real sense it’s a journey.
That mindset has to be built into our school system which is yet to accommodate that concept.

AA for HHPeople: When we were younger, they asked us what we wanted to become, but they didn’t ask what problems we wanted to solve. Perhaps that is an example of what you are talking about.
BEN: Yes.
The biggest place that shapes the attitude and the character of a young person are two institutions: the school and the family. These two institutions are made up of people who have been raised by this same community and they can only give back what they have they have received, so they aren’t raising contributors. This is a conversation that needs to be had at the highest levels in terms of getting people to formulate policies at all levels, especially in those formative years.

AA for HHPeople: Absolutely. One final question. So, looking ahead, in summary of all of our conversations, what are your hopes and aspirations for the future of Africa, considering its rich cultural tapestry and the potential for growth and development that Africa has?
BEN: I like to keep very realistic expectations for Africa. My hope will stem from this youth population. I think that we are sitting on a gold mine – this youth population that we have. Social media has given us an opportunity that we haven’t yet started to tap into. We don’t control all the cards. The technology itself is not owned by us, but we can connect to it and we can do a whole lot of things with it. We can engineer a whole lot through it.
A few influencers have done a lot in that space, but that space is gradually becoming more destructive than creative. There is a huge opportunity for us to consciously use thought leaders to push the kind of mental shift we want to see in the next generation.
My aspiration and hope is that we can tap into the resources of these young people using what they are glued to all the time. And that’s social media. I don’t think anything has gotten the attention of Africans like social media has in the past few years. I think it has the capacity to become the next education platform for Africa. Is Africa going to wake up at some point and say, “Hey, let’s try to use this to our advantage and grow our youth to become what we need them to do?”

AA for HHPeople: Thank you so much. This has been actually amazing. It’s been an eye-opener for me and I’m sure our HH People can’t wait to read this. Thank you so so much for even agreeing to be our cover and for all the insights.
BEN: Honestly, it’s been my pleasure.