Mfonobong Inyang: Having The Gift of Critical Thinking & Perspective (3)

Communication is key to development. The ability to effectively exchange ideas cannot be over-emphasised. Communication is particularly important in public service, governance and politics because it involves the administration of people and material resources. If you are going to steer such ships, you must be savvy in the way you navigate the ethos and nuances of both verbal and non-verbal expressions.

That is why I am focusing this instalment of critical thinking and perspective on the communication curse in the public sector because when things, whether good or bad, show consistency, as a communication connoisseur, one can begin to extrapolate unmistakable signatures. Some things are hidden in plain sight because so much happens in real-time that many clues fly over our heads because we haven’t properly processed them. That is why history repeats itself when we don’t learn from it. Once you can decompose outcomes into models and strategies, the rest is easy-peasy.

One-Way Traffic

One sign of dysfunctional communication is that it is unilateral. It has a false sense of importance, an over-bloated ego and an air of superiority. It is implicitly condescending; it doesn’t believe or rate the public enough to accept constructive feedback. It talks over your head, not with you. It routinely dumps a press release on you and even when there is an actual press conference, it either doesn’t answer questions or is selective on what questions it answers. In extreme cases, a person who has this mind-set will walk out of you when asked an ‘uncomfortable’ question. This is why during electioneering, political rallies and on the campaign trail, they tell you what they will do but you never get a chance to interrogate those submissions in real time – you only find out, unfortunately, that you have been sold a dummy.

No Interviews

This is why some people don’t participate in regular town hall meetings and interviews; they frankly don’t understand why they should be explaining themselves to you, a ‘lesser’ being than themselves. They know their shallow minds will be exposed, they don’t plan on doing what they promise so they don’t want any media clip of their words being documented. Personally, for instance, it would be a cold day in hell before I cast my vote for someone who doesn’t show up for a debate but wants to represent me. Debates are not the ultimate yardstick for determining good leaders but the underlying principle is sacrosanct – if a person applies for a job, he or she can’t say that an opportunity to talk to the employers’doesn’t matter. How can you be so eager to serve people and be so busy running for office that you don’t have time to address the very people you want to serve? Riddle me that!

Wi-Fi Unavailable

Isn’t it interesting that a person that claims to serve you will stubbornly refuse to share public documents with you, especially those that border on the allocation of your common patrimony? Some people will claim to represent you but they will not make public their voting choices on critical issues that concern you. That’s because they are really there for themselves and their personal interests, not yours. They are quick to act on things that threaten their interests but drag their feet when it comes to things that affect you. They deliberately live far from their constituencies so that there is little or no chance of meeting. They only come around when they want some political favours. They rather give handouts than democratise opportunities for wealth creation because your poverty is what fuels their continued relevance.

Surrogates

If you want to lead me, talk to me directly and stop cutting through the corners. It’s unacceptable when all I hear is plug talk coming from middlemen. There is inherently nothing wrong with having people speak for a political leader. It’s standard practice even in the private sector to have communications connoisseurs, media managers and image consultants hold briefs for top execs. However, it’s reaching when citizens are constantly fed sound bites from emissaries than the very principal that they queued up in the sun to cast their ballots for. It gets worse: these surrogates not only gain more notoriety than the actual person in office, they also begin a well-oiled campaign of trolling, traumatising and torturing the public with distasteful communication. These are people who wouldn’t have had a job in the first place but for the electorates that hired their boss.

You Used To Call Me On My Cell Phone

There are essentially two phases of dysfunctional communication in politics: it says one thing when seeking or trying to retain power but says another thing when it’s in power – chameleon no do pass like this. So when people switch up from what they promised and what they delivered, don’t be surprised. People that used to engage with you intermittently on social media before they got into power, now insult and block you off when you ask questions or differ with them on certain issues; they’ve got a reputation for themselves now.

Dysfunctional communication doesn’t have an ideology; it just samples the pulse of the people and tries to tap into that energy when it wants something, even though it doesn’t believe in such. They project expertise when out of office but project excuses when in office. They are better at running for office than actually running the office. They campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Funny thing is that when they are exiting power and they read the handwriting on the wall, they start granting candid interviews and doing plenty shalaye via literature in an attempt to redeem their image and look for a soft landing from the people they have treated with so much contempt.

‘Loyalty’

Dysfunctional communication defines loyalty as the ability to unlook the sins of its faves, develop a cult following that makes you outsource your thinking, gaslight people, cause chaos, rabidly attack or misrepresent perceived political rivals, defend the indefensible, keep quiet when egregious things happen, sing the praises of its principal, ‘carry certain people along’ and basically master how to stand back and stand by. This type of loyalty is strangely rewarded with a higher mandate to wreck more havoc if given the opportunity; it is not premised on fidelity to the rule of law or the people but to private and partisan interests. If ever their loyalty is truly tested, they will choose other interests over people in a hurry. This is why enablers are no different from the actual perpetrators in my book. You cannot kumbaya your way out of aiding and abetting dysfunction by your actions and inactions. So when next you hear that a person is loyal, stop and ask, “Loyal to who and to what?”

Crisis Comms

Nothing exposes dysfunction more than a good old crisis moment; it reveals the underbelly of an anti-people philosophy. If it’s not victim-shaming, it’s lacking in empathy, tone-deaf, insensitive, dismissive, entitled, threatening, blackmail-ridden, divisive, self-righteous, sectional, parochial, buck-passing, reactionary or it completely ignores you altogether. It represses others from being vocal about their pain points by shutting down people, platforms and places that enable citizens to speak out. It puts more emphasis on material losses than on human casualties. It accuses you of being paid saboteurs or anarchists when you don’t agree with its pedestrian arguments. It speaks more when in a clime it regards people’s rights and via foreign platforms than through local ones. You don’t want to hold your breath in a crisis because it would further aggravate the issues with unguarded comments than de-escalate them.

Newspeak: It Invests More in Propaganda Than in Actual Solutions

It is more interested in controlling the narrative than in managing the situation. When it is called out too many times on its untruths – it changes the managers of data to those who are more favourably disposed to its agenda. Misinformation and lies are rife when it communicates, sprinkled with a healthy dose of arrogance for effect. When it comes to promises, it compares itself with the best but when it comes to performance, it compares itself with the worst. Information about the main characters it projects is almost always shrouded in controversy. Most private citizens have their records public yet these public figures have their records private, no be juju be that?

When it comes to the real work, it doesn’t lift a finger but when it comes to propaganda, all hands are on deck. It rather employs apologists and battle bots on traditional and digital platforms for subterfuge purposes than hire actual technocrats to get the ducks in a row. If handed a sepulchre, it would rather white-wash the exterior than raise the dead within. Dear friends, beware of leavened bread.  

As George Orwell said in his classic, 1984, “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”