Lessons for African Youth: Leadership and Responsibility
Leadership is not about titles or positions; it is about influence, impact, and responsibility. Africa is in need of visionary leaders
What This Recession Means
President Muhammadu Buhari,Nigeria’s PresidentCredit: Nairametrics There is a recession in Nigeria. I am not even going to pretend that I understand all the dynamics of the current state of Nigeria nor am I going to explain what some of the economic terms I will be using are. In truth, many Nigerians do not care about or understand what all of those words mean. This piece will attempt to explain what this recession means for Nigerians in the middle and lower class demographics. I started walking on this road when this woman, let us call her Mama Success, came to my house. I have known Mama Success for close to ten years now. Mama Success barely has any formal education and is a petty trader. She is married to a mechanic and they have three children. Since I have known her, she has always been in the lower demographic, struggling daily to keep her family. She sells whatever is in season. When there is tomatoes, she sells that. If it is groundnut, that is what she sells. As at the time of this post, she was shuttling between hawking cooked corn and boiled groundnuts. I had not seen her in two, maybe three, years and when she came to my house, we spent time catching up. She had been in my place barely 30 minutes when she started complaining bitterly about the state of the economy. ‘Ramat, you know I eat corn only because it is cheap but now, even that corn is expensive oh!’ That was how she launched into her tirade. She told me that corn that she used to buy for ₦50/tier had gone up to ₦220/tier. She talked about Garri – Nigeria’s ‘food for the poor’ as many people call it – and the price increase was shocking. I listened to her moan about all manner of things and what really broke me was when she spoke of her first son. She obviously couldn’t send him to school on what she earned but somehow, a benefactor took up his education and sent him to one of the Unity Schools. Her joy was short lived when barely two years in, the government proposed an increase of about 300% on school fees, asking that parents pay ₦75,000 from what used to be ₦20,000. The benefactor announced that he could no longer pay Success’s fees and wished them well in their endeavors. Mama Success worries about her children’s education and she worries that they may end up like their father and her; illiterate, poor, unhappy. When she left my house, her complaints stayed with me. I kept thinking about her and her children and other families like them. So I decided to do some recce myself. I went to the market a couple of times to get a sense of the price of things. Here is a list of the price of a couple of things in the market. Vegetables are cheap but that may be because this is rainy reason. The list above is just so we can get a semblance of things. I used small measures and not wholesale measures so you can see how hard things are. People who have steady incomes and even basic salaries are feeling the brunt of this recession. Every additional ₦10 is something someone in the lower class feels deeply. But the thing is, it is not just people in the lower class complaining. Nigerians categorized as ‘middle class’ are unhappy too. They might not feel the bite as much as people in the lower class, but they are feeling it. This brings me to the next point; employment or the lack of it. Millions of Nigerians want to work but there are no viable jobs. Okay, let me be fair. There are jobs but in most cases, they are just not worth it. Companies across board no longer give full employment. Everyone one is toting the magical word: internship. This means that companies can’t afford to pay people commensurate salaries but since they still want their jobs done, they hire people for the barest minimum with promises of full employment after about six months. I have been to a couple of interviews where prospective employers want you to do a ₦200,000 job for nothing more than ₦50,000. And because there aren’t that many plush jobs readily available, people take these slavery internships and hope that things get better for them. I don’t even want to mention clothes and transportation because in the light of other things, they seem trivial. Anyone who has been buying fuel, paying for public transport or buying clothes knows that things are a bit more expensive than they were last year. The news is filled with companies downsizing and even salaries being slashed. This is coupled with the fact that some parastatals and state governments cannot even pay salaries. What does this all mean? This means that even with the hike in the price of things, fewer and fewer people have the purchasing power to get basic necessities. As a result, the markets aren’t as full as they used to be. I spent time talking to market men and women, okada riders and bus drivers, petty traders, hawkers, masons, tailors and small food vendors and the general feeling amongst them is ‘the country is hard.’ That Nigerians are suffering because of the policies of this government, or the lack thereof, is no longer news. What is however surprising is the government’s callous dismissal of the suffering of Nigerians. Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, said that the ‘recession in Nigeria is exaggerated’. Exaggerated? EXAGGERATED?! I want him to tell that to Mama Success as she reduces her daily meals from two to one. I want him to tell that to the okada rider who is worried about school fees for his children. I want him to tell that to the civil servant who is earning minimum wage and
On Flawed Leadership And Stunted Growth
Employees playing a game of Chess.Image: Pexels.com Have you ever worked for someone whom you knew is less intelligent than you are and whose vision is so myopic that it cannot really be called that? Have you had to deal with leaders who stifle your capabilities and reach just because they cannot see beyond the rim of their glasses? Is it frustrating when you cannot move as fast as the world is moving because your boss is stuck in the past? If your answer is yes to all this, then the club of frustrated employees welcomes you with open arms. More companies are springing up with little or no respect for basic work ethics. Anyone who has some extra money thinks that they need to expand their sphere of influence by owning businesses. This is good because, in an economy where most young people are without jobs, it reduces the spate of unemployment and even facilitates growth and development. While this may be good when these companies have clearly defined visions and structures, it is a hell of problem when they don’t. Employees of such organizations see their offices as a means to end; the end being the take-home pay. As a result of this, many of these employees are without focus and sometimes, direction. They go through the motions every day and go home either unfulfilled or indifferent. These employees are not to blame; the leaders of their organizations are. A leader is supposed to be innovative; a person who thinks outside the box. In fact, a leader should believe that there is no box and (s)he should be able to translate that same belief to the people who follow him and who work for/with him. Steve Jobs might have been the one known on the Apple Incorporated platform, but all the great ideas didn’t come from just him. His leadership style made the Apple Company far bigger than most of its other competitors. When employees can see that their leader is very innovative and open to creative thinking, they will either follow suit or be booted out! This has ensured that the Apple brand is a brand that is built to last and to remain on top of its game. That company isn’t so much about the intelligence of the employees, but more to do with the strength of its leadership. Business man working.Image: Pexels.com The story was told of a man who had traveled from his home county and was away for about twenty years. When he returned home, he decided to take a drive round town to see what had changed. While driving, he came across a derelict building that housed his county’s only restaurant. Out of nostalgia, he drove into the parking lot and decided to go in. As soon as he stepped in, it seemed like he has gone into a time capsule. The restaurant was exactly the same; from the black and white checkered table tops and floors, to the faded yellow and green curtains, the heavy jowls of the proprietor behind the counter and the slightly off smell of baked goods and food. It was said that he sat down to eat and was served by the same maid, only difference being that she was older and heavier around her mid region. He could have sworn that the meal tasted exactly the same and it was while he was eating that the idea came to him. When he left the restaurant, he called up business associates and outlined how his home county was a good place for investment. After one year, he had built the most state-of-the-art restaurant anyone had ever seen. He employed big shot chefs, made massive campaigns and generally set the town abuzz with news of the new restaurant. The restaurant was divided into three: a section for pastries, chocolates, ice creams, shakes and cakes; another for local dishes from within the country; a third section with delicacies from countries abroad. His management team decided to create job opportunities for the people of the county. Soon, the restaurant began to employ mechanics, welders, masons, and other charlatans to come cook meals. The chefs eventually got tired of trying to teach them what needed to be done and so, they left: one after the other. Soon, the restaurant was run by people who had no idea how to cook, bake or do anything related to food. The facility gradual began to go to waste. The meals got messier and messier and even the food art that was characteristic of the restaurant began to dwindle. The owner came again into town after some years and when he went to inspect his facility, he was in utter shock! The restaurant looked anything but impressive. The foreign dish section was an exact replica of the local dish section; serving the same local dishes. What was worse was that the menu was exactly the same with the first restaurant of the town and since the first restaurant was better at doing their thing, patronage of his restaurant had dwindled. In six years, his dream had been reduced to rubble. None of his business ventures had failed except this one. He was reported to have called a meeting of his management team and when he brought up the issues he had with them, the management had the effrontery to say, ‘The people do not understand the new dishes. And since they were already used to what the town was offering, we decided to just give them what they were used to’. The owner was reported to have smiled and in summary, dismissed his entire management team. He knew that when things didn’t work, the leader was more to blame than the employees. Leadership is more than position. It has to do with seeing the potential in opportunities, maximizing the possibilities of imagination, influencing people to follow you and your idea and consistently ensuring that you are at least one step ahead of your competition
