Ibrahym El-Caleel

By Malam Ibrahym El-Caleel

Foreign invaders such as the US, NATO and Russia strike capital cities first, basically to break command and control. This creates a leadership crisis in the country, and this is how armed militia from different parts of the country begin to get stronger. The country’s borders become porous, everything passes through. This effectively means you’d have a full scale war and an insurgency going on. Even after the war when the foreign invader leaves, your insurgency will be there staring into your eyes. Go and take learnings from Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Well, after attacking the nation’s capital, the next thing foreign invaders do is to begin working on their supposed objectives of invading. God forbid they invade Nigeria, but after Abuja, they will be heading to the purported sites of “Christian genocide” to begin the work of “saving Christians”. It is not Kano, or Jigawa or Gombe. It is North-Central, especially states like Plateau and Benue, then perhaps Southern Kaduna. These are the areas constantly flashed in the media, with a claim of Muslims in Nigeria killing Christians, when everyone knows what’s happening there!

Now, the attackers in these locations do not have designated addresses. They are bandits, killer herdsmen, kidnappers and whatnot. They are criminals who live in the bushes and always moving from one area to another. If the US will be able to clinically target them and annihilate them, then this is a very good one. Nigeria will be extremely grateful for this act of charity done from the American taxpayers’ money. Both Nigerian Muslims and Christians will be happy and grateful that the US came and annihilated these bloodthirsty beasts with clinical precision.

However, based on clear antecedents, foreign invaders don’t do this type of job free and with clinical precision. It costs a nation so much to launch an invasion, therefore nobody goes to war “free”. Secondly, interventions like this always come with collateral damage. The undisclosed costs and the collateral damage is what every Nigerian with a functional brain thinks about and shivers. Once you have a functional brain, this uncertainty is what makes you not want US presence on Nigerian soil, whether you are Muslim or Christian.

Now, back to the North-Central. The first collateral damage in Benue and Plateau States is most likely going to have more Christian victims themselves, than Muslim victims. The simple reason is because we all know that Christian population in these states is more than the Muslim population, and this is why both the governor and deputy governor in each of these states are Christian. As a Christian who is cheering Savior Trump, if you are sure that the US will be able to isolate Christian populations from the collateral damage in a densely Christian populated state, then you are good to go with your celebration.

On the flip side, the cost of the war is what I don’t understand. The US is known for fetching available mineral resources after striking nations. I do not know how they plan to tap into Nigeria’s resources because the most liquid resources are located in the South-South (Niger-Delta) region, which is far away from the sites of the so-called “Christian genocide”.

Already, a US politician and advisor of Donald Trump, named Dr Walid Phares posted earlier today that he is advising Donald Trump to establish an emergency base in Port Harcourt, in order to “deter Boko Haram and other jihadist” (his words). He posted this through his handle @WalidPhares on X (formerly, Twitter), see screenshot below.

I am not interested in the conspiracy theories since there must be a background story to the choice of Port Harcourt as a military base. Port Harcourt is considered to be the commercial center of the Nigerian oil industry. It has vast reserves of oil and natural gas, and produces more than 50% of the Nigerian crude oil and gas. It is the chosen location for establishing the US base, and from there will Trump be launching attacks on Boko Haram and other jihadists that are killing Christians.

Trump shouldn’t have much business to do with the South West, except for access to the sea. For South East, may be with Gov Soludo’s recent remarks that Christians are killing Christians in Anambra, Trump might want to go and help out there too. Otherwise, the South East should be okay too. But I looked across the core Muslim North, and I am afraid it might not really be attractive to Trump. There’s really nothing there to take back to Washington, except swathes of farmlands which Bello Turji and his brothers in terror haven’t allowed innocent Muslim farmers access to cultivate.

Additionally, I don’t see any serious Nigerian economy structure that would interest Trump. If he’s coming to the core Muslim North, then it’d be the usual false flag operation as the US did in Iraq. It’d be a cover up to the war crimes it’d commit and the oil benefits it’d get through its Port Harcourt military base. For the gold mines in Zamfara, Sokoto, Kaduna and co, the villagers in those locations have already flew away since the bandits intensified their attacks on those villages. When Trump’s army arrives there, it’d be an engagement with the bandits, and that’s really a good one. The bandits should have a taste of their medicine.

Whenever I see a Nigerian cheering Trump’s arrival, I have to wonder if they’ve really thought it through. Muslims and Christians live side by side across our major cities; both faiths are present virtually everywhere. If a foreign intervention comes, nobody is guaranteed safety. The collateral damage will be real, and I fail to see what’s worth celebrating. And please rest assured, the political elite in Abuja would know in advance and would pack up and leave the country with their families. They would abandon you and the rest of us here with Trump. Maybe after 20 years of foreign involvement, as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of us will finally get a little bit of sense.

By Malam Ibrahym El-Caleel

A widely circulated video showed an altercation between a staff of the Maryam Abacha American University of Nigeria (MAAUN) and a father to one of the students of the school.

It is a 33-second-long video that doesn’t allow for proper evaluation of the incident except for the audacious comment the student made at the tail-end of the video, in support of her father, saying, “Ba fa kyauta mu ke zuwa karatu makarantar ba. Kuɗi muke biya”. Meaning, “we aren’t studying in this school free. We pay money”.

The school has rightly issued a press release to say it has set up a committee to investigate what happened, and it demands to have the full video of what happened to ease its investigation since a 33-second video will barely help you take an informed position on this. Best wishes to them in their investigation, but let’s talk about the broader picture.

The girl’s raw comment about the money they pay to the school is a bitter lesson in business. The girl sees herself as a customer of MAAUN, not a student, and this is largely the philosophy of most private institutions of learning and their patronisers. It is an entrepreneurship first, then any other thing, like being a school or a university. And therefore, what we see in businesses would happen there since profit is the overall aim. Please, I am not tearing down private institutions. I am discussing business here.

“The customer is always right”

In the early 1900s, Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridges department store in London, popularized the saying that, “the customer is always right”. To be fair to Selfridge, he popularised this business philosophy to protect the buyer. Prior to this philosophy, what existed was the philosophy of “Caveat emptor”, which protects the seller and which means: “Let the buyer beware.”

“Caveat emptor” is simply saying that the buyer is fully responsible for checking product quality, condition, and suitability before purchase. Therefore, once the buyer pays for the product, they cannot hold the seller accountable even if they discovered the product to be defective. Even if you return the defective product to the seller, he’d simply say “Caveat emptor!”, meaning “you should have checked before paying!”.

This is where Selfridge popularised “the customer is always right” philosophy. The aim is to prioritise customer satisfaction even when the customer may be at fault. It is a philosophy aimed at keeping the customer happy or satisfied so as to have a sustainable business into the future. This builds trust and loyalty in business, and this is why it is widely practiced by businesses today.

Customers and some business leaders decided to abuse this nice philosophy. Customers saw it as an edge to abuse employees of the business they are patronising. Business leaders decided to make customers the “kings” and “queens” who are always right, placing them far below the employees who help them drive the business. This is why it is easy for the girl to make reference to how they are the thin line between that staff and joblessness. It is the reason why you, the reader, equally shouted at the bank staff you met at the customer service desk the other day. The bank as an institution with corporate headquarters somewhere in Lagos didn’t serve you well, but you are here in faraway Numan threatening, harassing and abusing an innocent 24-year-old girl you met at the bank’s help desk.

Customer is always right!

I was hungry in Barnawa some months back when I decided to walk into Market Square to get some food. A man, who should most likely be in his 50s, walked in after me. The attendant was serving the people who came ahead of him as per first come, first serve. Suddenly, this man took offence and began passing harsh comments on this lady. It was a whole lot of psychological abuse, making even s3xist comments. He wasn’t yelling at me, but I felt the pain. That young lady didn’t respond in kind, but coldly prepared his meal and handed it over. The customer is always right.

Only business leaders can reorient the customer on this. While you need customers to maintain your cash flow, you equally need your employees. And this is what the consumer goods giant, P&G, seems to be better at.

The P&G CEO between 1948-1959, Redwood Deupree, remarkably said: “If you leave us our money, our buildings and our brands, but take away our people, the Company will fail. But if you take away our money, our buildings and our brands, but leave us all our people, we can rebuild the whole thing in a decade.” This is a 187-year old company, teaching you the value of people in a business. Your people are your most important assets.

But unfortunately, most businesses today have thirst for short-term gains and barely have any interest in building a corporate culture that will sustain it into the future. When a company is overly thinking about finance, then it ‘worships’ everything that relates to the bottom line. It is ready to throw its most resourceful employees under the bus just to gain today’s profit. No plan for the business of the future.