Sharing an excerpt from "how political power damages the brain..." by Kperogi
Emmanuel Udogu
Please permit me to regurgitate this excerpt from the archives on power; and plead with you to chew on it against the backdrop of current political developments in Naija.
“Almost everyone I know wonders why people in power change radically; why they become so utterly disconnected from reality that they suddenly become completely unrecognizable to people who knew them before they got to power; why they get puffed-up, susceptible to flattery, and intolerant of even the mildest, best-intentioned censure; and why they appear possessed by inexplicably malignant forces; and why they are notoriously insensitive and self-absorbed… Of course, there are exceptions, but it is precisely the fact of the existence of exceptions that makes this reality poignant. … Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.’ Look at all the power brokers in Nigeria–from the president to your ward councilor–and you’ll discover that there is a vast disconnect between who they were before they got to power and who they are now.”
Farooq A. Kperogi, “How Political Power Damages the Brain–and How to Reverse it.” USA/Dialogue Series, Saturday July 27. 2019.
Ike Udogu
Cornelius Hamelberg
Re. the excerpt from “ How Political Power Damages the Brain–and How to Reverse it”
Just a few brief comments, please.
Well, I discussed the matter with my Better Half, when we went out for a walk this afternoon, on this Holy Day of Shavuot
She asked me what I would do if I had real power and I told her, first of all, I would stop the war in Ukraine, and secondly, I would throw all my enemies in jail. Then we walked on in silence. She was quiet for a while after I told her that.
That POWER changes people is a fact. I just clicked on that link and read the following :
“ Neuroscientists have found evidence to suggest feeling powerful dampens a part of our brain that helps with empathy. Even the smallest dose of power can change a person. You've probably seen it. Someone gets a promotion or a bit of fame and then, suddenly, they're a little less friendly to the people beneath them.”
The reverse could also be true, as in this quip from Pope’s An Essay in Criticism ( which he wrote when he was twenty -three years old )
“A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
Re - How power changes people is something else, and not at all surprising. The idea isn’t even funny.
It reminds me of the Islamic rule of thumb: If a lot of something can harm you then even a little of that something is haram. This applies to e.g. al-cohol. By extension, we could say that this could also apply to power - political power, even electric power, too many volts of which could jolt you out of the electric chair.
In fact, we already agree it’s axiomatic that if at all, “power corrupts”, then as the saying goes, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”
At this point, I’m thinking that we should not expect that the once lowly Custom's officer Atiku Abubakr of 1969 should continue to act, be and feel the same way about himself, be the same, if, God willing, he takes over Aso Rock as Nigeria’s next democratically elected most powerful PRESIDENT. If he has shown any signs of avarice or of autocratic tendencies in the past ( early warning signals) he might get a lot worse in the future and even become a DICTATOR.
I have been given to understand that he wants the Igbos to help him get elected. He would like to ride on them, all the way to the Presidential mansion and then tell them, “This is where the buck stops!” He may well ride them if they are dumb enough to allow it, although for now, his main weakness there is that he is Muslim and the Igbos are mostly Christian. Which is one of the reasons why the last time around, they did not vote for Baba Buhari, a fellow Fulani. Or maybe it was because their fellow Christian Pastor Olusegun Obasanjo had said, “God will never forgive me if I support Atiku for the Nigerian presidency”.
About the upcoming Nigerian Presidential elections, Pastor Obasanjo is saying, “: Nigeria needs men of integrity to pilot the country's affairs”
Integrity? I agree with him completely.
As the other saying goes, “ Character is fate” - character is what and who you are and you take it ( what and who you are) with you wherever you go; you can’t leave it behind you.
As a matter of fact, I just read some godly advice about character, from my classmate Leonard Gordon-Harris, sounding off here.
As the Hebrew Bible tells us “Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth” Understandably,. he did not go around boasting to everybody, “ I am the most humble dude on this planet”, nor did he go around beating his chest and telling everybody, “ I am Israel’s greatest prophet!”.
That would not have been a sign of humility. As a matter of fact, when the Almighty said He was going to commission Moses to be His prophet, Moses demurred and said to the Almighty, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
If a weakly paid full-professor became one of these, through that kind of transformation he would be in a better position for self-critique, he would have better self-insight or at least some insights into his much greater self, maybe even start thinking and believing that he is personally greater, has a bigger brain, a bigger bottle, a bigger stick, a bigger bank account than any lowly vermin…
Whether or not it was Lincoln who said “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” the thesis is still worth examining.
In the case of adversity as a test, we have the extraordinary example of Iyov otherwise known as Job, and he was sorely tested….
When Lincoln famously said, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” he was obviously guarded about his use of absolutes, his “all” and the possibilities of “some”
The first part of his judgement, that, “Nearly all men can stand adversity” may be sound and as to the second part, “ but if you want to test a man’s character give him power”, I suppose that those among us who have “power” are being tested.
Here is one of the examples I love: Jose Mujica, the man crowned “The World’s Poorest President “
I’d also say, “ if you want to test some people’s character, just give them a little education “
Cornelius Hamelberg
In conformity with Emmanuel Udogu’s stated intention in posting the excerpt, that we “chew on it against the backdrop of current political developments in Naija”, I’m chewing on it, and even if inadequately informed & updated on the nitty-gritty of what’s going on, I’m sure that we all have a general picture of the depressing reality and are in essential alignment with the thread just started under the header SUNDAY MUSING.
Ike Udogu probably did the musing on - according to orthodox Christianity, “ The Lord’s Day “ - Sunday, a holy day for Christian believers, a day on which, just like the Jewish Sabbath, a day of think no evil, see no evil, hear no evil, and especially do no evil; it’s the one most holy day in the week when one is absolutely not supposed to entertain any evil or vindictive thoughts, such as burning or throwing misgovernance miscreants and criminal politicians, corrupt bank managers and corrupt supreme court judges into prison and if we only could we would throw them all into The Lake of Fire., feared by al-Islamists as Jahannam
So, that must have been Emmanuel Udogu mildly musing and putting it lightly on Sunday. Has he changed his mind this Monday ( Sweden’s National Day) and haven’t things got a lot worse over the last twenty-four hours? They certainly have got a lot worse, with the massacre of Christians peacefully worshipping on Sunday morning in a Roman Catholic Church in Ondo, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, the massacre said to have been carried out by Fulani Herdsmen, the death toll of the Christian Faithful, 85 souls, and many injured.
Say “ Francis” - I know many, past and present and I think of, first and foremost, not His Holiness the current Pope but of Francis Abiola Irele. Also missing in action today, and being terribly missed, Pius Adesanmi. How would they have been reacting and deliberating on this heinous crime that's aimed at further exacerbating Muslim- Christain relations and the faultlines along the North-South divide in the runup to the Nigerian Presidential Elections
I’d just like to clarify a few things to set the record straight, something that one cannot do posthumously.
Does the same psychology apply to the power wielders the world over? Are they also subject to the same scrutiny and analysis, and do they also submit to the praxis of “ power corrupts”, or does it only apply to the sinful among Nigeria’s arrogant money & power elite? Has anyone seen the Youtube takes on Ibrahim Babangida? Has there ever been a Black Stalin of Nigeria? Abacha? Any among us who would like to be the incorruptible President of Nigeria? Nigeria’s poorest president ever? Nigeria’s greatest 419 President.? Any Nigerian-American aspiring to take over the White House?
Money is also power. I notice that there are no names of oil sheikhs from the Gulf States (or Nigeria), not even one, among Forbes’s top billionaires. How is that possible? If Danjuma sold his oil well to China for $1.8 billion, shouldn’t he be on the list? What about these guys?
More importantly, what I said about Atiku wanting to ride on the backs of Igbos, all the way to the presidential palace which he wants to occupy, is a rather exploitative way of thinking ( especially on the Sabbath or on “ The Lord’äs Day” even if the symbolic thinking comes from al- Islam and the Holy Quran where the status of the donkey and the symbolisms of riding a donkey are many - in Christianity isn’t the messiah supposed to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey? Didn’t Umar Ibn al Khattab ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, as a conqueror? There’s also the story of Balaam and his ass…At this stage, with regard to Baba Kadiri’s assumption that President Buhari reasons that only a Northern ( Muslim Fulani?) can defeat Atiku, it’s patently clear that
(1) Not every Northerner is going to vote for Atiku, even if Atiku were to be contesting against the devil incarnate ( as Jesus asked: “How can Beelzebub cast out Beelzebub?” Some naive ones may be wondering, who is Beelzebub? The fact is he knows who he is. He is the prince of darkness, the one who instigated and led his disciples to perpetrate the Ondo Church massacre.
(2) If the South -South, the Middle Belt Benue people, and the Yoruba - Igbo axis could get their act together and unite - in the face of what’s always the looming adversity ( trial) - the so called “ South” could easily prevail, despite the North’s, the by no way monolithic North’s slight edge when it comes to numerical strength. I understand Ojogbon Falola who has written so many tomes covering the history and future of Nigerian politics to have been hinting at this the other day when he asked,
“ Have Nigerians transformed themselves? If I see myself as Yoruba and I see you as Igbo, will the Kanuri man not manipulate both of us?
If the so-called delegates who represent you and I collect money, is the big man not our slave owners?”
In the absence of the South not making the necessary pragmatic moves toward unity, in the face of the looming adversity, the so-called “ Northern Hegemony” can continue with its “divide and rule” tactics.
An old proverb from the parsimonious Scots is “ If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” Not that the Igbo’s the most entrepreneurial group in Nigeria, are in any way beggars or Almajiris if what they are asking for is adhered to, then Atiku will be out of business :
South - East want Ahmed Lawan for President
Should this be granted then, Hallel-u-Jah, the much-desired unity is to be taken for granted; the South-South, South-East and South-West will ride and money bags man Atiku will be taken for a ride.
As A Sierra Leonean ( John Ernest Leigh ) famously said, “ Take the money but vote for your conscience” The only problem with that is that in juju Sierra Leone and Nigeria, the conscience can be somewhat compromised when oaths have been taken on the juju to vote for Alhaji money-bags and the oath is jettisoned in favour of common sense…
With regard to the direction that Sunday Musing has taken so far, the real situation is akin to when my great friend from Jamaica said, “ Cornelius, do you realise that we could raise an army and liberate those diamond mines in Sierra Leone, from Lebanese control?”
That’s the outline of a novel that’s been brewing for a while. Some gangsters get together, raise some capital, form a political party, win all the elections, and take over the diamond mines in perpetuity…