Little things that can make a big difference

Very recently, I have been reading a particular book titled – The Tipping Point. The book focuses on how little things can make a big difference in this world. I was amazed at how much analysis of epidemical events has narrowed these little things into 3 main categories. I couldn’t help but think that if only these factors were applied intentionally to our society, the Nigeria we live in presently will become history as a new Nigeria would have taken over.

The tipping point, written by Malcolm Gladwell, is the biography of an idea, and the idea is very simple. It is that the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviours spread just like viruses do.

Typically, things grow over a defined pattern in an additive sequence according to time. The numbers can be explained by formulae that have been tested and proven; but when things “tip”, they literally defy the laws of additive growth and on the instance of application of a few characteristics simply multiply in geometric proportions as is the case in sexually transmitted diseases. What are these all important characteristics?

These characteristics – One, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and three, that change happens not gradually but in one dramatic moment – are the same three principles that define how measles moves through a grade-school classroom or malaria attacks every harmattan, or corruption has eaten deep and fast into the fabrics of African nations – Nigeria in particular.

Of the three characteristics, the third one – the idea that epidemics can rise or fall in one dramatic moment – is the most important, because it is the principle that makes the most sense of the first three and that permits the greatest insight into why modern change happens the way it does. The name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once is “the tipping point”.

Every aspect of the society in Nigeria I believe can “tip”. Change in this country can be sudden and true. Corruption can radically reduce like the crime wave in the New York City reduced dramatically in the early 90’s. Crime did not taper off. It didn’t gently decelerate. It hit a certain point and plummeted completely.

One of the little causes that can have big effects is an idea like the New Nigeria Club. A network of a few individuals who have determined to do aggressively the few things that would suddenly cause Nigeria to tip from the state of an old Nigeria to a New and Desirable Nigeria. If only a few Nigerians will join this few set of individuals to do the few necessary things, then we’ll eventually have the whole of Nigeria moving in the direction of our dreams.

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