Jon West
Imust confess to plagiarism with respect to the title of this newspaper article. Sometime in late 1983, after the bruising electoral campaign and triumph of President Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria(NPN) against his opponents,Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo of the Unity Party of Nigeria ( UPN) and Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe of the Nigerian Peoples Party(NPP), there was a very interesting media altercation between two very respected newspaper columnists.
The altercation was set in motion, when a certain Mallam Abbah Dabbo (now embroiled in the Dasukigate Arms saga) a columnist for the Sunday Times newspaper, wrote an article full of triumphalism and in support of the NPN and its presidential candidate. In reaction to the general , mostly southern public opinion that President Shagari was totally incompetent and had allowed his minions Umaru Dikko, Ibrahim Tahir and others to run riot with corruption and political rascality, Mallam Dabo posited that even though the North was lacking in intellectual prowess and other endowments, it had always held political power in Nigeria and that was all that mattered.
This smug assertion by Abbah Dabbo, drew the immediate ire of another columnist, a certain Mr Eddie Iroh, columnist for the Sunday Guardian, who countered, in an an article titled “Power Without Knowledge” that, even if it was true that the North had always held powering Nigeria, it was power without knowledge and that was why the country was permanently heading nowhere. This altercation struck a deep chord in my then very young mind and there was no way I was going to forget it.
Fast forward to 20015, many decades after, and another election, with the same theme about the transfer of power to the North as the major basis for the choice of a Northern Presidential candidate for the opposition APC to contest against the” Southern” Presidency of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. The election of Mohammadu Buhari as President, on March 31,2016 restored power to the North, the apparent default power base of Nigeria.
However, since the accession to power of President Mohammadu Buhari, Eddie Iroh’s angry response to Abbah Daboh assertion of Northern political dominance, and it’s constantly national ethos- diminishing consequences, has again come to the fore. From the debacle of addressing the German Chancellor as President Angela Michael of Western Germany, both non-existent entities and which it appears our President did not know, to the other gaffes and faux pas in the USA, France, United Kingdom, South Africa and Ethiopia, our President is confirming that even though some people can always have power, but without the accompanying knowledge, the country can be led down the road to social and economic perdition.
Since the advent of President Buhari, a former military leader with a contrived aura of asceticism and low tolerance for corruption, we have witnessed the face of power without knowledge, culminating in the current budget imbroglio, where the President of the country signed off twice on a budget document that he obviously did not bother to read or whose contents are beyond his understanding. You do not have to be an economist to understand a budget document, which is basically composed of statements of intent, subject to changes issuing from developments in the operating and global environment. A President should also have economic experts and even budget advisors as Presidential assistants, but the President needs to respect knowledge and its purveyors, in order to fully benefit from its accruals. However, it appears that the President has no respect for both his affirmed “noise makers”Ministers and Civil Service technocrats that they superintend. This is why we are now embroiled in this budget fiasco that threatens to tear the fabric of the nation apart. An avowed anti-corruption fighter and ascetic, appears to have allowed his minions to inflate the budget to a disgusting level, worse than any in the history of Nigeria, while mouthing platitudes and demarketing his country in the global arena, while opening his flanks at home to accusations of corruption and incompetence worse than the predecessors he claims to indict.
Smart leaders and politicians usually surround themselves with people more technically competent and knowledgeable than themselves. This is the secret of political and even business leadership success, but more critical in the political arena. This is because technical and business intelligence is not really a prerequisite for political success. Politicians are usually not very smart, but the successful ones are able to identify good people , whose special qualities they can latch on for political glory. If Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were great lawyers in the mould of David Berkowitz of Harvard Law School renown, they would not be in politics with the likes of Donald Trump, the loquacious , successful real estate agent, and the former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, who wanted to engage the Russians from her binoculars, since they were so close to Alaska, or even the great Ronald Reagan, whose poor appreciation of geography and obsession with astrology and sorcery left much to be desired. On the home front, it is doubtful whether a Mike Adenuga, Pascal Dozie, Otunba Oba Otudeko, Aliko Dangote or Innocent Chukwuma of Innoson Motors, will join the fray with the likes of Obasanjo, Atiku Abubaker,Nasir El Rufai, Kwankwanso, Rochas Okorocha or Chibuike Amaechi .Politicians leverage on charisma and political opportunism to come to power, and then the clever ones use intelligent people to achieve their economic, social and political goals and mostly leave an undeserved great legacy, like Ronald Reagan .
Smart leaders and politicians usually surround themselves with people more technically competent and knowledgeable than themselves. This is the secret of political and even business leadership success, but more critical in the political arena. This is because technical and business intelligence is not really a prerequisite for political success. Politicians are usually not very smart, but the successful ones are able to identify good people , whose special qualities they can latch on for political glory. If Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were great lawyers in the mould of David Berkowitz of Harvard Law School renown, they would not be in politics with the likes of Donald Trump, the loquacious , successful real estate agent, and the former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, who wanted to engage the Russians from her binoculars, since they were so close to Alaska, or even the great Ronald Reagan, whose poor appreciation of geography and obsession with astrology and sorcery left much to be desired. On the home front, it is doubtful whether a Mike Adenuga, Pascal Dozie, Otunba Oba Otudeko, Aliko Dangote or Innocent Chukwuma of Innoson Motors, will join the fray with the likes of Obasanjo, Atiku Abubaker,Nasir El Rufai, Kwankwanso, Rochas Okorocha or Chibuike Amaechi .Politicians leverage on charisma and political opportunism to come to power, and then the clever ones use intelligent people to achieve their economic, social and political goals and mostly leave an undeserved great legacy, like Ronald Reagan .
President Buhari, obviously intellectually challenged , but charismatic in a rustic sense, needs to start using the power of knowledge in order to advance his political and economic agenda, assuming he really has any, in order to avoid the ready judgement of the impatient and instant gratification-infused Nigerian populace, who wanted change in order to usher in an El Dorado of economic empowerment. They are already largely disenchanted, less than a year into the President’s four-year tenure. There are knowledgeable Nigerians across the ethnic, religious and social spectra , who can help evolve an economic, social and political agenda for the APC and the Buhari Presidency. It is not too late to avoid the pitfalls of power without knowledge and the sneers of self-fulfilling prophets who predicted this constant slide to the abyss of perdition.
Jon West, Abuja, February 15, 2016.
Jon West, Abuja, February 15, 2016.
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