The Fragility of Observation

The Problems with Labels

The conversation below happened among three friends of Itsekiri origin who were invited to a year’s fellowship in an elite research institute in north America. This visit is expected to strengthen their ability to collect and analyze data related to developing countries. As part of the successful completion of the research visit, they are expected to present and submit a book manuscript at the end of their term.

Please find below their dialogue after they met with their host – Prof. Meticulous.

Taymesan: Hello gentlemen. I think we are set for an eventful and research packed year. I hope we will become scholarly before we leave this institute.

Eyimofe: Nowadays, I am doubtful who is really a scholar when researchers conduct experiments on a given segment of the population and infer from this segment about the entire population. Not to mention the accusation of fraud that is all over the place.

Oritsefemi: Well, it is even accepted to study undergraduate students and use their responses to develop policy from marketing to psychology. I stay awake at times wondering about the logic behind this. Anyway, I will ignore my biases while I learn from mentors and colleagues at this institute. I am happy to meet you Taymesan and Eyimofe.My middle name is Adaramaja.  Iam also of Itsekiri descent but grew up in Portugal and have been working on cocoa research in Ecuador and Belgium for years. I will return to Nigeria to help with the cocoa sector after this fellowship.

Furthermore, I want to know more about the Itsekiri people of Nigeria.

Taymesan: Itsekiri! We will unconsciously learn about our origin as we hang out together in the next 12 months. Remember that knowledge is tacit.

Eyimofe: Personally, I think if we don’t understand other people’s cultures, we will never comprehend our own. In other words, learning about our own culture while immersed in another culture is the bestconsequence.

Oritsefemi: Thank you Eyimofe. I am glad you are in my cohort. I am positive I will learn a lot from you.  Your profile says that you have three PhDs (one in economics, another in philosophy and the last in religious studies especially the Abrahamic religions).

Taymesan: Wow, I am flabbergasted. I didn’t see his profile, Oritsefemi! But I heard people after the orientation talking about one Eyimofe who is a polyglot and a polymath.

Oritsefemi: Polyglot and polymath? Can you please amplify what you mean by those terms?

Taymesan: Eyimofe is a polyglot because he can speak 10 languages. He is a polymath because he is knowledgeable in different areas. He recently wrote an excellent 1000 pages book on the intersection of culture, colonization, and religion.

Oritsefemi: My impression is that many scholars have written about those concepts.

Taymesan: Eyimofe’s thesis is different. He developed an extensive nexus between odu ifa (ifa corpus), the 256, and the future of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, he explained how cancer can be treated using African indigenous knowledges including using extracts from bitter leaf.

Eyimofe: Enough about me. On the issue of learning more about the Itsekiri people, I read a journal article a few years ago and the quote below which was insightful to me:

“The Itsekiri today number 30,000 people. They speak a dialect of Yoruba but culturally have more in common with Benin. One may postulate the acceptance of the rule of a Benin prince by a people who were proto- Yoruba, that is Yoruba speakers who were unaffected by the cultures invading their country from the north in the past two millennia. The Itsekiri are culturally quite distinct from the neighbouring Urhobo (Edo or Benin speaking) and Ijoh, though from both they have borrowed many traits” (P.C. Lloyd 1963; “The Itsekiri in the Nineteenth Century: An Outline Social History” The Journal of African History) 

Oritsefemi: Excellent. This is good start. We will continue from there next week when we meet for our weekly discussion of Itsekiri history.

Taymesan: I have been thinking about the cuisine they have at the institute’s cafeteria. The challenge is they offer a significant amount of pork related products such as bacon, ham, and sausage. I follow the kashrut dietary law, so I don’t eat pork.

Eyimofe: What you see online is not necessarily sacrosanct. You need to cross check with the hospitality service and let them know you have a dietary restriction. What you see is not necessarily what it is! Don’t ever judge a book by its cover. As for me, I am a flexitarian (flexible plus vegetarian), a flexitarian is an omnivore with a higher propensity towards the consumption of plant-based diet. So, I am fine with any food that is available.

Oritsefemi: Is kashrut dietary law related to kosher?

Taymesan: Yes, it is.

Oritsefemi: Good to know. I consult for an agricultural export company in east Africa and attaining the European Union (EU) standards with respect to sanitary and phytosanitary standards is always a challenge but now there are religious considerations too. To trade successfully in this global village agricultural stakeholders should be careful of the ingredients that go into the production of food. If you produce insect-based feed, it is forbidden under the kashrut law - kosher. The only insect that is allowed is grasshopper because of the way it jumps. If they use locust, short-honed grasshopper or cricket at times is regarded as closely related to grasshopper, then it would be fine for export to countries like Israel. Some Shia predominant countries are also reluctant to consume insects, though halal is neutral with respect to the consumption of insects.

Eyimofe: Halal, kosher, and organic are all niche markets that are desirable but their compunctions can be difficult to ascertain. Remember that food is an experience and not a search good. You may not even know the authenticity of the product after consumption except you are familiar with the desirable traits of the food. Certifications are often used to guarantee quality, but it is not a panacea. In other words, what you see is not necessarily what it is.

Taymesan: Thanks, Eyimofe. Your analysis is related to the economics of information. You can buy a product with the impression that it has the desired attributes meanwhile, but you bought the bad instead of good in a market for lemons, a situation referred to as adverse selection. This is just to corroborate your assertion Eyimofe that what you see is not necessarily what it is.

Eyimofe: Great. Thanks for the example.

Oritsefemi: Adverse selection, moral hazard, and principal-agent problems are all challenges associated with asymmetric information in the market. Another concept I find useful in economics is dynamic returns to scale – the reduction of cost due to accumulation of experience and learning. A reason why I think countries should protect their economies from dumping and thus allowing for trial and error. This is usually enhanced by subsidies.

Eyimofe: Dynamic economics of scale is based on learning by doing because learning can be accumulated. How will you learn if your industry is not protected?

Taymesan: Subsidy! There is a dichotomy nowadays between the supporters and antagonists of the implementation of subsidy. Some people even assert that subsidies may be fraudulent.

Eyimofe: Subsidies are very important. For example, the Canadian supply management is a subsidy program for the dairy, eggs and poultry sector. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU is based on subsidy otherwise most farmers will be out of production.

Taymesan: I struggle with the idea of leaving the market to operate by itself. There is a lot of hidden and asymmetric information in the market and price mechanism doesn't work most of the time. Price mechanism may lead to market failure. There's no equilibrium in the market because it creates disincentive for entrepreneurship.

Oritsefemi: Absolutely! Prof. Meticulous, told me that the free market as espoused by the present government of Nigeria and other developing countries my not be appropriate. He told me he does not believe in perfect competition and equilibrium. In a perfectly competitive market, profit is zero and no sensible person will operate in that domain. He said he subscribes to Kirzner’s idea that what we have in real life is equilibrating tendencies and rivalry among players.

Eyimofe: How can subsidy be problematic. If subsidy is problematic, then it's not the problem of subsidy. It is the problem of implementation, especially lack of participation error. Again, what you see is not necessarily what it is.

Taymesan: I agree with you.

Oritsefemi: I concur. I explained to Prof. Meticulous that the countries are manipulated to implement these policies by international organization that don’t have a good grasp of the prevailing situation in these countries. Developing countries also lag with respect to research. It's been more than 20 years that the issue of removal of fuel subsidy started in Nigeria. And there is still a dearth of scholarly work on this issue.

Eyimofe: The structural adjustment programs (SAP) of the IMF/World Bank with many attributes including devaluation of currency, deregulation, and removal of government support among others contributed negatively to the economy of developing countries. For example, the devaluation of the naira made cash crops such as cocoa cheap abroad but inputs like Gamalin 20 (a chemical later banned as carcinogenic) became expensive. Devaluation is only good if your country exports, otherwise it's a disaster.

Oritsefemi: How do you explain the volatility in the foreign exchange market of developing countries?

Eyimofe: The exchange rate is always a challenge, and it can lead to arbitrage. As I was taught by one of my professors, in the short run the exchange rate is a mystery but a function of inflation and productivity in the long run. These ideas are well explained using purchasing power parity, Big Mac Index, Balasa-Samuelson, and the trilemma of international finance. The movement in the exchange rate market is not entirely explained by the theories above because what you see is not necessarily what it is.

Furthermore, my cousin, Amorighoye – a citizen of the US, left Nigeria after high school in 1989. He sent $60 US to his step mum in 1990 (exchange rate was $1US = 10 Naira: SAP contributed to this). Fast forward to early 2000s when my family friend was about to start his PhD, he transferred money from Nigeria to Canada ($1CAD = 75 Naira). The rates continue to depreciate, and they now fluctuate between 700 and 900 naira to $1US (August 2023). My concern is that all these policies by foreign experts continue to depress the economy of developing countries. And their currencies are not a good store of value talk less of convertibility. The question I keep asking myself is how and why the Gambian Dalasi is stronger than Naira and the West African CFA francs?[1]

Taymesan: I think the exchange rate will continue to be a mystery both in the short run and long run. Economists have failed to predict major events in our lifetime correctly. They didn’t see the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008 and they flip flopped with respect to the management of COVID-19. Personally, I think monkeys picking numbers at random will predict the success of an investment better than experts. Be careful of the recommendation by experts - what you see is not necessarily what it is.

Oritsefemi: I am beginning to see that the use of our sense organs and judgment based on observation may not be absolute. A colleague once visited a village where he saw only black goats. He came and submitted a report claiming that the village has only black goats. Little did he know that Mr. Exception has only brown and white goats and he was in a nearby village to visit the veterinary doctor with his goats during my colleague’s visit.

Taymesan: Hehehe… this scenario is related to the ideas presented by Taleb Nassim in the Black Swan.

Oritsefemi: Not necessarily! Taleb is mostly talking about our blindness to random events, that is the impact of the highly improbable.

Eyimofe: There is uncertainty, randomness, and volatility in all spheres of life. For example, the real estate market can present surprises. Who will ever fathom that the second largest developer in China, Evergrande, can collapse after owing $300 billion. Big at times may be a façade because what you see is not necessarily what it is. There is a popular saying in land economics that buyers should beware “caveat emptor”.

Oritsefemi: I don’t understand how people will complete their mortgage in the current regime where houses in some cities in Canada are overpriced and based on speculation. There is no relationship whatsoever between the prices of houses and the average income of Canadians. I wonder who lives in those houses?

Eyimofe: Easy questions. The properties are filled with investors, speculators, people who think a house that they live in is an investment, and conspicuous consumers.

Taymesan: Are you implying it is a bad idea to buy a house?

Eyimofe: It is not but please exercise caution as you try to enter the housing market.

Oritsefemi: Well, ilu gangan loro aye. Ti o ba kooju senikan, eyin loko si elomiran (this life is a like a talking drum, while the front faces an individual the back faces another person). A simple translation is there are two sides to a coin.

Taymesan: Two sides to a coin! I was at a café yesterday for my daily dose of cappuccino and I heard two elderly people and a hippie trashing the gig economy. What do you think Oritsefemi?

Oritsefemi: On the issue of gig economy: Suppose two immigrants with a bachelor's degree from Nigeria migrated to Canada in 2007. One got a job (Mr. A) and he's still working now 16 years later. The other enrolled in a master’s degree program. The graduate degree holder (B) finished in 2010, did contract jobs here and there before he secured a permanent position in 2015 with an annual income of $60,000.

Mr. A on the other hand was paid $8/hour in 2007 = $1120/month. And 16 years later, he is paid $15.5/hrs. This translates to $2,170. And after 15 years his qualification is still the bachelor from Nigeria and skills improvement limited to the place of work.

In 2007, a room in a house was $300 and a two-bedroom apartment was $800. In 2023, it is $600 and $2200 respectively. Is education a signaling device? Are immigrants worse off with the gig economy (skip the dishes, Uber, DoorDash)?

Taymesan: Apparently, there's an illusion that newcomers can make money from logistics and the gig economy! But some people will argue that getting a Canadian graduate degree does not guarantee a professional employment.

Oritsefemi: I think you need a ticket to get into the cinema. In other words, education will always be worthwhile.

Taymesan: I agree with you. By the way, Eyimofe, do you still hear from your cousin, Amorighoye?

Eyimofe: Yes, a very principled individual although family members think he is a polytheist because he practices traditional religion. They have failed to realize that he worships Eledumare[2], through different deities or orisas[3] such as Oya, Obatala, Ogun, Yemaja among others that serve as intermediary to the supreme being. It is a misconception because of the lack of understanding by people that he is an monotheist worshipping one God through many intermediaries. This was also alluded to by Yuval Noah Harari in his bestselling book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”.

Oritsefemi: Deep! It has been a very eventful day. My suggestion is that people should be careful of the problem of ‘what you see is all there is (WYSIATI)’ as popularized by Nobel price winner in economics, Daniel Kahneman, which can arise from observation because ‘what you see is not necessarily what it is’

*Special thanks to Mrs. Dupe Animashaun for the coronation thank you card from HRH Tsola Emiko, The 21^st Olu of Warri, Ogiame Atutwase III - Ade ape lori, sapatu a pe lese[4].

By

Bamidele Adekunle @badekunl

August 16, 2023

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[1] Currency exchange: August 18, 2023

 1USD = 60.55 Gambian Dalasi

1USD = 601 West African CFA francs

1USD = 700 - 900 Naira

[2] Odu – pot, mare (never exhausted)

[3] Orisa (oritshe). Can they be referred to as saints? Ori – destiny (head) sa – picks you out.

[4] The crown will last on your head and your shoes will last on your feet. It is a way of saying the King will reign for a long time.