JOSHUA J. OMOJUWA argues the need for people to think through their statements
Have you ever spent an extra moment just reflecting on the saying, “talk is cheap”? I have. My simple position is, biased as someone who gets paid to give speeches, talk is not cheap. However, we cannot speak of the simple when given an opportunity to contextualize even the simplest of sayings. This led me into exploring a little more into the history of the saying. I found it interesting that, like the saying, “jack of all trades, master of none…”, there was a lot more often riding on it, to the point one could say that “talk is cheap” is hardly a complete statement. Rest assured; the cost of power won’t be treated as the elephant in this room. We will come to it, before then, let’s deal with the cheapness of talk. It will cost fewer words to write about.
In one of its earliest ever uses in writing, it appeared as, “Talk is cheap, but the man who confirms his patriotism by the ‘unequivocal and authentic deed’ is the true patriot”. This is from The Belfast Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, published by Smyth and Lyons in 1810. There are other ones, like, “Talk is cheap, until you hire a lawyer” and “Talk is cheap, but whiskey costs money.” Another one that fits quite well into this article, like the first reference, goes thus, “Talk is cheap, but it takes money to pay for railroad tickets”. This is from The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs by By Martin H. Manser, Rosalind Fergusson. Let’s leave talk for now, let’s talk power.
Seun Okinbaloye, the popular Channels TV presenter, asked a busy Nigerian politician how he’d fix power. The politician replied by saying, “it’s not rocket science”. I’d say to mind that this is the sort of answer people give when they don’t know enough about a phenomena. But this politician said more, so he probably knew more. So, I thought. He went ahead to speak about “the three countries that improved power in recent times…India, Vietnam and Egypt…governance is about learning from best practices. It is not rocket science”. Then the interviewer pressed, as he ought to, “have you identified what the problem is?”
This question is with the expectation that, even if not so detailed, the speaker will give an insight into the challenge and even before they start to speak about the solution, the listener would start to have an appreciation for what is to be done. “Egypt did it, Vietnam did it, Bangladesh did it so I can help Nigeria do it”. Fair enough, but when you are asked, do you know how Egypt did it? Are you willing to break Nigeria’s borrowing limit to do it? These are the issues.
The lowest level of public policy engagement is to say one country did it, so you can do it. Do you know how they did it? Do you have the tools to replicate it? Do you have the cojones to go into the market to finance it? Are you going to transfer the current debt to the future or the consumers? Do you even know what’s missing in our current power design? Are you aware of power devolution? Is Nigeria’s main challenge generation, transmission or distribution? If you have an installed capacity of 14X and you are able to transmit only 5 or 6X, what should one be looking to address in that value chain? Are you looking to meet these gaps with government as a player or just regulator?
“Have you identified what the problem is?” Given the opportunity to break it down, the response that came is the sort of pedestrian response Nigerians who are used to listening to or participating in newspaper stand conversations or beer parlour debates would have been accustomed with. “Yes, the problem is in…” some buffering, then the extraordinary insight landed, “…failure of leadership”. Pedestrian, trite and bland.
This is the tragedy of opposition politics in Nigeria today. A group of otherwise bonafide humans wants everyone to hail as the saving grace of our national challenges. Talk is cheap, or may be not, it depends on who is doing the talking. “The failure of leadership is the problem with fixing power in Nigeria” is cheap talk. It contains no iota of freshness or information, it is bereft of any thinking. It is empty. It is the sort of thing you say when you have nothing else in your head to say about the problem.
In this context, talk wouldn’t have been cheap had we been taken on a ride through Nigeria’s historical challenge with power. The failings or missed opportunities in the deregulation that never really was. The need to ensure that power devolution comes with quicker outcomes than expected. The promise of gas and the gaps in that promise. The missing link in transmission…there is a lot that could have been said. Enough for the listener, a supporter or not, to think, this person knows his stuff.
This is the tragedy of opposition politics in Nigeria. People wanting to be trusted with and handed power just because they can theaterise anger on TV or social media. There is nothing to be said at this time about those who started to see that the new government needed a coalition formed against it just six months into same administration, some weeks after some of these coalescing elements had spent as much as eight years as governor(s) or minister or some other positions that were created to fill people in as party members.
We may not be the most educated country in the world, however, we aren’t a country of small minded people either. We cannot be collectively carried away by empty slogans and and vain promises bereft of thought or consideration. Okay, you can transform Nigeria in four years? Fine. How? Telling me all it takes is 100 percent effort suggests that, as a matter of fact, you don’t know what you are talking. Talk for its sake. Cheap talk.
Omojuwa is chief strategist, Alpha Reach/BGX Publishing
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