By Philemon Adjekuko
During the many riots that took place in the early sixties in Singapore, President Lee Kuan Yew realized that the destruction of properties were more sever in areas of the cities inhabited by tenants and squatters than they were in areas where people had their own homes. He, therefore, concluded that people generally put a lot of more value on own their own assets and would do so much to protect them than those of others. Enhancing the people’s ability to own valuable properties, he thought, could help to reduce tension and damage to society when citizens get angry and riotous for whatever reason. That became one of the factors that drove his hugely successful housing and urban renewal policies.
It turned out that in almost all policy decisions, President Lee was preoccupied and driven by the deep thought about how the average Singaporean would fare.
One more remarkable thing that the late President did was that he always challenged his men to come up with original solutions that would work for his people and not necessarily what was being practiced somewhere else in the world back then. In fact, he was legendary at spotting the deficiencies in foreign solutions while tackling Singapore’s myriad of problems. More often than not, the international press sneered at him only to hide their heads in shame much later when his policies proved more effective than the over hyped Western ones.
For instance, on the issue of pension, President Lee felt that each generation should carry its own burden unlike in the Western world where present and future generations bore the burden of providing for aging generations. He went on to design a safe pension investment scheme that ensured that workers did not invest in financial assets that could easily see their investment go up in smoke as it is often the case in the West.
Little wonder that late President Lee’s People’s Action Party (PAP) has remained in power for the past fifty six years. Remarkably, the PAP continues to be re-elected by Singaporean not because they had a grandiose plan to remain in power for decades by rigging, but the party cared for the Singaporean common man or what would be called the “Singaporean Persona”.
A Persona in business vocabulary is the typical customer for whom an entrepreneur designs a product. It is said that an entrepreneur’s product has a higher likelihood of success in the market place when he has segmented his market and zeroed in on his target persona. He must ask himself, where does this individual stay and work? What are his age, sex, education, marital status and life preferences? How much does he earn and spend? As the entrepreneurs answers these questions, he conceives a product that will both appeal and add value to the life of the “persona”. Such great businesses as APPLE, Boeing, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo. Ebay, Amazon are said to have used this business technique to make billions for their owners.
No doubt, late President Lee used this model to pole vault Singapore from the Third World into the first world long before it became a prized technique in the world of business.
The result of the last election was a referendum about whether or not the outgoing government and its party paid any attention to the average/common man or the Nigerian Persona. The election was an expression of the repress feeling of the common man which was harvested by an elite class that saw the opportunity. But given the anger on the street over myriads of issues which make life uncomfortable for many Nigerians, the referendum on the incoming administration and its party will begin on May 29th, 2015. With just a couple of false moves, the administration and its party will stall and a crash on the mountain tops in 2019.
Therefore, Mr President elect should keep the face of one Nigerian, the average Nigerian, in his bath room, bedroom and living room. That face, and not those of the “big men” who mill around him daily, should remind him why he is up there in the Villa. He should take time to watch the news and read newspapers to see how Nigerian is doing under his administration.
Mr. President elect clearly understands that the country is officially at war on the economic front. This is certainly not the time for eazzmatazz political maneuvers that do add value to the welfare of the people. Nigerians have had enough meaningless ”big grammar” and historinics. President elect needs to be drivenby a war room mentality. Thankfully, he knows all too what that means and his time starts now.