Continued from yesterday
In my assessment of President Muhammadu Buhari from a distance, he appears like a leader who is open to ideas but needs a convincing evidence and well-marshalled persuasive case to sway him.
Two significant comments by President Buhari attest to the above assumption.
The first is when he was vying for office and made a comment during his Chatham House, UK presentation in February that the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 persuaded him that dictatorship had no place in modern day governance hence he decided to become, as it were, a born-again democrat.
The second is when he had assumed office as President in May and he pointed out (when the debate on fuel subsidy removal was raging) that he had yet to be convinced about the efficacy of removing the fuel subsidy without hurting the masses.
With the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Group Managing Director, Ibe Kachikwu, promising to sift the cost of the graft embedded in the process of delivering subsidy to determine the actual cost and weighing the same against the probable negative effect on the hoi poloi, sooner or later President Buhari may make an informed decision to remove or not remove the financially debilitating fuel subsidy.
In like manner, Mr President probably needs to be persuaded that his talk about Nigeria being broke is counterproductive and an ill-wind that blows Nigeria no good, but as the proverbial saying goes, “Who will bell the cat?”
I have heard that the President is a voracious reader so he is abreast of the yearnings of the masses through the mass media but does he brainstorm with his advisers to see all sides of issues or he makes his decision based on nominal and residual knowledge?
At this juncture, let me crave the reader’s indulgence by citing some practical examples currently trending to buttress my point about why it is improper to de-market Nigeria.
Take the recent unfortunate crash of Russian airline, Metro Jet, over the Sinai in Egypt for instance.
While the UK and the USA, intent on protecting their citizens ( about one million Brits ) who enjoy vacationing in the Egyptian resort in Sharm El-Sheik, are speculating that the crash might have been caused by a bomb on board the aircraft, to prevent their citizens from further adventuring that way, Russia, whose citizens are in the majority of those who perished in the crash, are opposed to the UK and the US position because it might trigger unrest back home, if the Russians believe that the bomb was a reprisal action against Russia which had injected herself into the Syrian war by bombing ISIS positions.
Similarly, Egypt which would lose tourist income (about 20 per cent of GDP) if the threat and activities of terrorism are confirmed in the tourist haven, are denying and rejecting the suspicion of a bomb blast as the cause of the crash so that tourists won’t stop coming.
Sooner or later, the truth would be revealed by the experts investigating the accident after they unlock and decode information in the “black box” but before then, sovereign denials would have helped douse the tension in Russia and the anxiety of potential tourists to Egypt. Such is the importance of the doctrine of self-preservation which incidentally is a law of nature.
Another example is reflected in the application of the rules in international law and diplomacy.
Sovereignties do not enforce international laws as seriously as they do domestic laws for the simple reason of self-preservation. Take climate change, human rights and trade/commerce at international levels for example. The super powers like the USA, Russia, China, the UK, France, Germany and recently Iran are never in harmony on international issues because of selfish interests. That’s why not all of them signed off on the protocol after a climate conference held in Rio, Brazil a few decades ago to address climate change. According to their national interest, they accented or dissented, that’s why their agreement to enforce carbon tax to deter carbon emission that leads to ozone layer depletion, has been largely ignored.
Another conference on climate change is afoot in Paris, France next month and you can bet that no common agreement reached would be implemented wholesomely.
On human rights, the West often accuses Russia and China of rights abuse-recall Tiananmen Square crackdown. Legend has it that China, the most populous country in the world, (population estimate of 1.4 billion) had as a counter argument, offered to test the US lofty human rights credentials by unleashing about three hundred million Chinese outlaws into the USA (population of about 320 million) and see if the country that prides herself as the bastion of liberty would not act differently.
Considering how civil liberties were relegated to the background (wire tapping of the US citizens at home and abroad, Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the so-called Rendition in Europe) after the unfortunate incident of terror attacks in New York and Washington, DC on September 11, 2009, now known as 9/11, the Chinese had a point.
The US for instance does not subscribe to some international protocols, especially those that could antagonise their interests particularly with respect to their men and women in uniform located in military bases abroad which enable America play the noble duty of policing the world.
Along the same line, trade/commerce has remained sore points of continuous disagreements and tension between the advanced economies flouting or not sticking to the World Trade Organisation tariffs.
Therefore, accusations and counter-accusations of dumping of products like steel, arbitrary currency devaluation to tilt balance of trade in their favour etc amongst advanced economies are common occurrences.
I went into these detailed narratives to make the point about the extent to which countries can go in self-preservation to prove to Mr President that the savvy qualities and business wit, required to run a country are quite different from the mien of forthrightness and religious piety required to lead a mosque or church since in the market place of life and especially, in the comity of nations, it is a case of survival of the fittest when tigers ,vipers, crocodiles, lions and anacondas co-habit.
As an army general, who has led troops to war, l believe President Buhari understands what l’m struggling to portray as he will never disclose his army’s weaknesses (whether infantry, artillery or air power) to his opponents in the battle field.
In a seminal report by psychologist Carol Dweck of Stanford University, USA, titled, “The Low Down: Why Attitude ls More Important Than IQ”, published November 2015, in Harvard Business Review, it is argued that “The deciding factors in life is how you handle setbacks with open arms.”
According to the psychologist, “success in life is all about how you deal with failure.” In her report, she proves that people’s attitude fall into two categories: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. With a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and you cannot change. This creates problems when you are challenged because anything that appears to be more than you can handle is bound to make you feel hopeless and overwhelmed.
Concluded