For most Nigerians, the "damage" was already done in Primary and Secondary school, and at home, before university.

If you spend your formative years learning bad assumptions, and building the power to operate with a compartmentalized mind, Harvard education won't correct you. https://twitter.com/MrNosegbe/status/1325742164408610816

This is a more important cousin of a problem that holds many software products back. In some PM paradigms, we talk about avoiding premature "solution language/thinking", and sticking to "problem language/thinking" for as long as possible.

Some people get to university, and they've already "switched" to "solution thinking". They believe they already know what the solution to the problem looks like. So instead of asking "how do I create jobs?", they're asking "how do I implement import substitution to create jobs?"

And if you're already in "Solution Thinking" mode, your cognitive biases will make your brain ignore helpful data that may be telling you your solution is wrong, or that there are other alternatives.

That's the Nigerian ruling class. Even the ones who "mean well".

So a guy engineered from childhood to be a statist, flogged into incuriosity, will get to Harvard/Wharton, learn everything Friedman had to say, get Summa Cum Laude, and just keep it in a compartment in his brain. In practice, his statist assumptions will reign.