It's often struck me that Bajans (or people from Barbados) are very much like meerkats. 

Both species are inquisitive (nosy), helpful (interfering) and compact (short).

 

I can say this because a) it's true and b) my parents are meerkats.
 

I wondered though what sort of cuddly creatures Nigerians would be and it's my belief they'd be hares. Not rabbits who spend their time nibbling lettuce, twitching their noses and peeing themselves, but hares; the mavericks of the mammal world.

 

Hares are fast. Do you know anyone who's ever caught one? Exactly! They're shrewed. They're not going to stand still and allow themselves to be eaten; that's the cow's job and that's how beef was invented.

 

No. The hare knows what's what and can adapt to almost any situation.

 

As humans we tend to view the animal kingdom as separate to our own but the only difference between us and them is that we're still working our fingers to a bone while they, obvioulsy being more evolved than us, have worked out how to take it easy.

 

And in this world where the real currency will soon be capability and the spotting of opportunity, who better than the Hare-like Nigerians to help show us the way?
 

The African nations have always been business-minded. Here in the UK, most of our black entrepreneurs are of African descent. Take Saville Row designer Ozwald Boateng or TV presenterJune Sarpong.

 

Any discrimination they faced was transformed into determination.

You can imagine the faces of some of the more established tailors when Mr Boateng moved in.

Yet his sharp suits and even sharper brain have thrown a lifetime to tailoring, and in turn have sparked an interest for clothes of quality amongst younger customers.

It's interesting - a friend of mine who knew June Sarpong said that in the early stages of her career, she slept on people's floors. No shame in that. It's a similar tale to that of Madonna and Barbara Streisand who, last week in an interview, told how she worked in a call centre earning $42 a week.

She spoke about the memory as if it was yesterday. She too is a hare and like all go-getters, she went and she got. She didn't let her ethnicy or 'unconventional' looks stop her from achieving.

We can learn a lot from people like that. 

I think all too often, especially in the West, if we don't look a certain way we think that the doors are barred but like the fast-moving hare or the all-seeing meerkat, if we keep our eyes open and if we're able to move quickly, we won't need to wait for a door to be opened, we'll be too busy creating our own doors to success.