A popular hip hop song by Kanye West and Jamie Fox that topped the United States and global music chart some 10 years ago has an interesting lyric: “Ain’t messing with a broke nigga.”
As we would all agree, music or the art mimics society and the import of the lyric by the American musicians is that nobody wants to do business with a broke person, company or country.
Intriguingly, instead of deflecting disinformation about Nigerian economy, President Muhammadu Buhari has been proclaiming that Nigeria is broke at every given opportunity in Nigeria and abroad with gusto and aplomb.
His antagonists have pointed out that by making the negative proclamation that “Nigeria is broke” a sing-song, he is demarketing Nigeria but Mr President has promptly fired back at his critics that he is being honest and reiterated the fact that our potential investors probably know about Nigeria’s financial standing better than Nigerians.
It may be true that some investors may have information about the broken state of the Nigerian economy but any assessment of Nigeria by potential foreign investors, reinforced by Mr President, that Nigeria is broke remains speculative and without the official seal of Standards & Poors, Moodys and Fitch, globally reputable financial rating agencies which have not rated the country as being broke. So, why is Mr President putting his imprimatur on unfounded assessment?
Even more bewildering is the fact that local financial pundits have also proved the claim to be factually incorrect after applying all the templates for measuring financial conditions of a nation’s economy; so, why is the notion of Nigeria being broke still looming like an albatross?
In my assessment, it all boils down to politics which by now (six months into a new regime) should be put behind as pre-election activities and as leaders face the post-election challenges of nation-building by rolling up their sleeves and getting on with giving Nigeria a new lease of life after 16 years of visionless leadership, as the All Progressives Congress alleges.
No doubt, as a man of high morality, Buhari is perhaps singing this “Nigeria is broke” refrain based on the mind-boggling amount of money which should have been in the country’s vaults but allegedly frittered away by the previous administration. So, out of moral rectitude he is crying out loud, but the point Mr President is probably not recognising is that one does not need to bring the compunctions of an Imam or pastor required for leading faith-based organisations into leading a firm or nation, for that matter because they are different ball games.
As Mr President knows very well, there are different skill sets required to lead a congregation of people with absolute faith in God seeking penance and working towards going to heaven as opposed to ruling over a nation of people struggling to survive hard economic conditions as they try to master their environment while competing against other nations.
In leading a congregation of the faithful, the ultimate objective of the leader and the led is to be meek and pious in order to see or be with God at the end of life’s journey. It needs no further elucidation that such an atmosphere is devoid of intrigues and sinister motives, as all the members of the flock, more often than not, have their minds riveted on God.
It is quite the opposite when leading a company or nation.
With a nation, it is warfare without guns (in extreme cases with guns) as Buhari might have discovered in the course of contesting power against three successive Peoples Democratic Party presidents in 12 years.
Indeed, leading a nation is like managing a vast array of animal species ranging from the carnivores like lions and tigers (politicians)that feed on other animals; to the herbivores such as dinosaurs and lambs (voters) that feed on vegetable substances only and omnivores like humans (political platforms) that eat both meat and vegetable substances.
In a nutshell, a nation is a sort of jungle of animals of various species with conflicting interests where, as the popular saying goes, “dogs eat dogs”.
In that regard, being sanctimonious through plain speaking such as Mr President is doing by telling his local and international audiences that Nigeria is broke, rather than enhancing our economy, is capable of jeopardising the survival of the country.
For those familiar with the Holy Bible, when the Pharisees sought to pitch Jesus Christ against king Caesar by asking to whom they should pay tax, Jesus answered them by asking whose image was on the money? When they responded that it was Caesar’s, he told them to give to Caesar, what’s Caesar’s. This, in my view, simply implies that the rules of God’s kingdom are different from the rules of man. The bible also advises the children of God to be as gentle as a dove and as wise as a serpent; so, telling your competitors in the comity of nations that your country is broke may be imprudent. It will not surprise me if there is an equivalent of the biblical admonition referenced above in the holy Quran too.
In the course of his 12 years struggle for the mantle, Buhari may recall the intrigues and shenanigans that were involved in trying to unseat the ruling party such as highlighting the positive values of the APC and himself-progressiveness/integrity and deemphasising or concealing the negatives-authoritarian/dictatorial tendencies which opponents ascribed to him. Such tactics helped prop up the APC and himself as the preferred party and candidate for Nigerians to choose to govern them.
The same psychology and philosophy apply to nations which are competing against each other hence they put their best foot forward.
From the foregoing, the benefits of not informing our potential investors that we are broke far outweigh telling them that we are, especially when Nigeria is actually not broke but only trying to mend a broken economy .
When President Buhari views the concern that he is de-marketing Nigeria with his “Nigeria is broke” rhetoric in the context of the analogy above, he won’t feel as scandalised as he was when he responded to the allegation in a recent speech.
In other words, rather than taking it personal, the political jab from the opposition PDP that he is de-marketing Nigeria should be seen from the point of view of his political opponents capitalising on an indiscretion, which does not deserve being responded to openly, as he has done, since it is mere politics of the opposition trying to ruffle feathers.
For the record, former President Olusegun Obasanjo was pilloried for saying he was appointing advisers but would not be bound to take their advice; by the same token, Goodluck Jonathan, the immediate past President, was also infamous for saying stealing is not corruption just to play down the issue of corruption under his watch and so also has President Buhari been poo poohed for saying ministers are noise makers as it is civil servants that do the real administrative job of governance to deflate the argument that the delay in forming a cabinet was impacting negatively on the economy.
Such glib remarks are made at moments of indiscretion and twisted out of context to score cheap political points and it is my considered opinion that they are mere puns and should not be defended like they are articles of faith.
In my assessment of President Buhari from a distance, he appears like a leader who is open to ideas but needs convincing evidence and well-marshalled persuasive case to sway him.
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.