If Business is War, then Generals ought to be great leaders.
By: Inemi Stephen
Tags: Economy, Nigeria, Failed State, Leadership Skills, The Art Of War

Taiwanese soldiers simulate fending off an attempted invasion during an annual drill at the military base in Hualien on Jan. 30. (Mandy Cheng/AFP/Getty Images)

Michael Crichton’s novel, Rising Sun (1992), suggested that ‘business is war.’ If this is true, then the business of managing an economy is strategic warfare. Every country’s leader seeks to achieve a given set of strategic economic objectives amid competing interests from other countries. The Nigerian leader is not exempted. An analysis of critical macroeconomic indicators of the Nigerian economy will show that the Nigerian economic environment could be a likened to a full-blown war to be fought using economic strategies.

An economic strategy involves the application of economic principles and methods aimed at addressing specific issues/problems. Similarly, a basic military strategy, is the planning and conduct of campaigns, using forces and other resources for the attrition of the enemy. As part of their strategy, modern military organizations have developed doctrines called ‘mission command’ or ‘mission-based leadership’ which acknowledges that no military person will go into action without knowing what he is trying to achieve and why.

Thus, the act of engaging in warfare and running an economy appear to be similar, at least in one aspect: both have to succeed in attaining set goals ahead of the competition, but economies have a lot to learn from warfare. The key objective in competition — whether business or war — is to improve one’s performance along these dimensions:

· To have access to better information than one’s rivals

· To analyze the accessed information and make sound choices

· To make those choices in the shortest time

· To convert strategic choices into decisive action

Put together; these points represent informed choice/timely action.

As part of its economic policies, the Nigerian government in 2017, released its medium-term plan for 2017 to 2020 tagged Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) which prioritized the following:

· Stabilizing the macroeconomic environment

· Achieving agriculture and food security

· Ensuring energy sufficiency

· Improving transportation infrastructure and;

· Driving industrialization focusing on SMEs

Without examining the details of the ERGP, the key points appear like a well-structured strategic plan which, if executed appropriately, will yield desirable results for the Nigerian people.

However, it requires human input. In all military engagements, having a brilliant battle plan without unit officers to carry out the ‘mission command’ is a futile endeavor as the soldiers will go into action without knowing what the ‘General’ is trying to achieve and why. In a war scenario, regardless of a well-crafted battle plan, the extent of damage that can be inflicted by enemy combatants on battlefield soldiers who operate without unit commanders is unimaginable.

The running of a country’s economy is similar. Without ministers and directors in place, the economy will be moving without direction. Drawing from the wisdom in The Art of War by Sun Tzu, …“Thus, while we have heard of stupid haste in war, we have not yet seen a clever operation that was prolonged.” The words of Sun Tzu could not have been more resonating as the present Nigerian government sworn in on the 29th of May, 2019, took nearly three months to swear in ministers to their cabinets. If the Nigerian economy is a battlefield, would the economy survive three months of warfare without its unit commanders?

Military Generals may acknowledge that they cannot make decisions about everything and cannot know what is happening in every battlefront without accurate and timely reports, information, and statistical feedback from their commanders and officers in the field. Otherwise, their well-planned decisions will be a waste of time and might fail like the Schlieffen Plan of the WWI, which was put together by a brilliant general who excelled at precision preparation. The Schlieffen Plan disregarded the political implications of what was regarded as primarily a technical solution to a military problem and thus failed when implemented.

In this light, could it be that the present Nigerian government toes similar line like The Schlieffen Plan by putting forward well-crafted and precise strategic plans but using only political considerations to solve technical economic problems? Alternatively, is it that battle plans of the government lack strategic objectives? For instance, the recent refusal to by the present Nigerian government pay the out of court settlement of $850 million negotiated by the immediate past administration of President Jonathan in 2015 to a UK court judgment of $6 billion fine, of the sour P&ID gas 20-year contract signed by the previous President Yar’Adua administration in 2010.

Rather than paying the out-of-court settlement, media reports indicate that the present Nigerian government choose to politicize the issue, and now six years after, the UK court has slammed Nigeria with an $8.9 billion fine ($6 billion + accrued interest and still counting) and granted P&ID the fiat to seize all Nigerian government assets worth $9 billion domiciled in the UK. Possibly, this outcome might have been different had the present government not taken six months to appoint ministers and start governance in 2015.

Going back to our leading questions.

Did the present Nigerian government have adequate information on the P&ID gas contract?

If they did, was this information acted on?

In what time frame were choices made?

Were these strategic choices converted into decisive actions?

Nigerian citizens might never be privileged to know these answers.

While it may be possible for countries to flourish without war, economies will not sustain without good economic policies. Thankful that running an economy is not precisely like war; however, when governments make bad economic decisions, the consequences on the citizenry are likened to the after-effects of war. There will be rising inflation and mass unemployment, breakdown of law and order, increase in crime rates, loss of morale, and widespread business uncertainty among others as is evident in Nigeria.

However, if running an economy is war, one would have expected seasoned generals to be the greatest leaders. No doubt, the unborn generations of Nigerians will come to bear the brunt of this economic tactlessness.