Daily HEALTH Blog: The One Question Prepped To Kill Corruption In Nigeria

Editor’s note: To fight and overcome an obstacle, understanding its essence can help a lot. The Naij.com columnist Ibraheem Dooba has found the right question to start the end of corruption in Nigeria.

The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Naij.com.

Identification of the core message

Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign had a problem – Clinton himself. He suffered from the Curse of Knowledge. He was what the authors of Made to Stick called a policy wonk: one who would go on and on about every topic thrown at him. His oratory and vast knowledge of the workings of the nation made it even worse. His campaign managers wanted to focus on a sticky, memorable message. Among the myriad of methods asserting themselves, they were left with only one choice: forced prioritization. One day, in 1992, James Carville, a leader of the campaign wrote three phrases on the board. One of them was: It’s the economy, stupid. This became the sticky message that was the core of Clinton’s campaign – twice.
“It was simple and it was self-effacing,” Carville explained. “I was trying to say, ‘Let’s don’t be too clever here, don’t come down here thinking we’re too smart. Let’s just remember the basics.’“
To him and other campaign leaders, if you say three things, you don’t say anything. So there must be a message triage, a focus, a prioritization.
“The need for focus extended to Bill Clinton himself, perhaps especially to Clinton himself,” the Heaths wrote in Made to Stick. “At one point, Clinton was frustrated that he’d been advised to stop talking about balanced budgets despite the fact that Ross Perot, the third-party candidate for president in 1992, was getting positive attention for his stand on the balanced budget. Clinton said, ‘I’ve been talking about these things for two years, why should I stop talking about them now because Perot is in?’ Clinton’s advisers had to tell him, ‘There has to be message triage. If you say three things, you don’t say anything.'”
James Carville and Paul Begala’s book, Buck Up, Suck Up, and Come Back When You Foul Up, is one of the best ever written on political campaigns, and while it advocates finding the core message as a strategy to sell political candidates, it’s not only in politics that sifting through the verbiage to locate a simple core message has been used or can be used.
Southwest, one of the most successful airlines in the low-fare niche, has been so on account of one major core organizational philosophy. Here’s how Carville and Begala told the story as cited in Made to Stick:
“Herb Kelleher, the longest-serving CEO of Southwest, once told someone, ‘I can teach you the secret to running this airline in thirty seconds. This is it: We are THE low-fare airline. Once you understand that fact, you can make any decision about this company’s future as well as I can.’
“‘Here’s an example,’ he said. ‘Tracy from marketing comes into your office. She says her surveys indicate that the passengers might enjoy a light entrée on the Houston to Las Vegas flight. All we offer is peanuts, and she thinks a nice chicken Caesar salad would be popular. What do you say?’
“The person stammered for a moment, so Kelleher responded: ‘You say, “Tracy, will adding that chicken Caesar salad make us THE low-fare airline from Houston to Las Vegas? Because if it doesn’t help us become the unchallenged low-fare airline, we’re not serving any damn chicken salad.”‘”

How does this help Nigeria?

In religion too, finding a simple core message has been attracting believers for centuries. Therefore, seeing that this strategy has worked in many vocations and for hundreds of years, could we employ it to defeat corruption?
As all those who hold political offices know, they are instantly buried in ideas and deals from the first day of office until they leave. Some of the deals are pushed by beneficiaries of the previous regime who seek to continue with the status-quo. Some are rejects of the administrations past who hope to find listening ears now. Many of these ideas are good, many are worthless; and some are in the middle – innocuous, so that you’re at once confused of where to place them and of their utility.
I’ve found the question that perfectly fits the occasion: How does this help my people? As the chief press secretary in my state, I receive a lot of project proposals – for my office and the ones I’m asked to forward to other departments.
And I ask of all of them, how does this help Nigerlites? This question cuts through bunkum like knife through butter.
You want my office to underwrite the erection of a billboard? How does that help Nigerlites? You want me to give you welfare? How does that help Nigerlites? How we proceed with your proposal depends on the answer to that question. If it’s going to help the governor only, you’ve no case! If it’s going to help the owner of the business and Ibraheem Dooba, you’ve missed the point. How is it going to help the people? Sometimes I tell people before they come: “This is the question I’m going to ask you,” and they never show.
It’s not expected of all leaders to ask this question; indeed, many will not desire to use it. However, for those who intend to sincerely serve, they will find this question a useful tool to focus their attention.