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| L-R: Mr Omoyele Sowore and Mr Donald Duke |
11 June 2018
It’s my candid opinion that former governor Donald Duke goofed when he told the blackmail-for-money journalist Omoyele Sowore that he can’t be president of Nigeria because he doesn’t have ‘experience’.
What did/does Duke mean by ‘experience’ here? Duke shouldn’t tell me that he fell for the spurious logic that says ‘experience is the best teacher’ —at least, he should know better than that now that the experience he’s referring to does not work in his ‘complex country like Nigeria’.
If he doubts me, let’s do a stock taking of all who have been president in this country at least from Nigeria: Olusegun, Yar’aDua, Jonathan and now Buhari, they all have experience, but, they continually fail this country; even Duke has failed Cross River in some respect and with all the experience.
Again, Duke also said Nigeria is too complex so it requires only experienced Nigerians to fix it, then it seems he doesn’t understand the meaning of experience within the context of Nigeria: all the presidents I have mentioned above were experienced, but they failed, so, it’s not necessarily the challenge with experience or perceived complexity, but, in my thinking —skill set.
I concede to Princewill Odidi who said earlier that team work is the key in this context not experience per se. To further buttress the point, the AMA, that is, American Management Association has identified about four skill set employers search out for in employees one of which is team work, another is communication skill, etc —they are four: if a president can pick his/her team very well, he/she will do well.
I think, at this juncture I must register my displeasure with the presidential campaign of Donald Duke: he’s coming from up to down, instead of climbing from down to up, that is, he seem to be prioritising the relevance of ‘godfatherism’ to make him President than the anticipated electorates —implying that a psychological assessment of his present campaign suggests that he’ll be elitist as usual if ‘elected’ President. It’s this point of departure between him and Omoyele that strikes me.
I don’t support Omoyele and won’t vote him —he’s not a presidential material; but, in comparison to Duke, I like his style; maybe his experience in the media is paying off here for him: he already has a manifesto, he’s consulting groups, he airs his perspective on topical issues particularly in respect of his Presidency —at least, he’s told us that he’d jail Saraki if elected, he’d declare Abiola President if elected —from where the disturbingly cluesless Buhari borrowed as an afterthought from 29 May etc to the embarrassment of Inyali Peter, Joseph Odok, Kalita Joe Aruku, etc. What’s Duke’s manifesto? Who is he consulting —OBJ’s CNM, etc Hmmmm! Duke is doing ‘fine boy campaign’, OK ooooo. I wish him well.
I am not impressed with the current campaigns of Duke, he’d sit up and stop banding around the outdated model of experience as a sine qua non for leadership.
Who experience epp!?
Nyok is a social commentator
