Logic for the helpless

Agreeing to disagree

There is nothing I enjoy more than the buzz of logic, the challenge faced with consuming information, much of it jumbled and disparate, eliciting points that feed the process of elimination and leading you to a point of forceful affirmation of the conclusions you have drawn.

When it comes to these things, I do not enjoy being confrontational, but I need to be persuaded, having a hunch will not do, the data, the facts, the thinking and the wherewithal must be laid out for scrutiny. It could seem like a clash of egos, a joust of knowledge minds pitted against minds almost to the point of exasperation.

Trust is valuable

Much as I have wanted to entertain some earnest protestations most of today, I just was not carried along with the premise. My dashboard was informing me that things were fine, yet I was being fed contrary indicators that could not be explained. I have to be able to trust what my dashboard is telling me or have nothing to work with.

I have spent decades poring and sifting through logs to reconstruct events and activities, it is almost an art of divination. I have an open mind, sure of what I know, and ready to learn new insights, it is exhilarating. It is also understandable that others might interpret logs differently and quite outside the moorings of what they intend, that is a given.

The detailed proof

This is where an eye of the minutiae and detail comes to play. You cannot afford to miss essential information, words and jargon used, timings, relationships, and expected outcomes. I could be lazy not wanting to devote time to that because of my conviction, then, you cannot avoid it. It needs to be done painstakingly and thoroughly to debunk any assertions completely.

That is where the buzz sets in, you feel the racing neutrons coursing the channels of deliberate and considered thought. The temptation to obliterate beckons but the better nature to educate gains prominence. In the end, we are here to help, but if you want to make it my problem, speculation and escalation just asks to prove where the problem is, and how we can work together to help you solve it.

Nigeria: Politics, Prophecy and Perceptions of Tunde Bakare

Perceptions or propaganda

The Nigerian public space sometimes affords the opportunity to postulate, proselytise, propagate, preach, prophesy, pronounce, predict, pander or pillory.

That list is hardly exhaustive as people who believe they have a voice find easy platforms, lecterns, pulpits, organs and media to make their strong views known.

There is the truth out there and there are shades of the truth, people can subscribe to speak the truth but the whole truth in a society as diverse and multifarious as Nigeria cannot be in the exclusive possession of singular persons, communities, regions, states or particular interests no matter how altruistic, honest and laudable their aims might be.

We must however grant everyone the opportunity to relay and convey their version of the truth and those who hear must exercise the greatest and utmost meticulous means to assess, challenge, verify, discuss and ascertain with all objective resource the sum and product of all these versions to arrive at the truth, debunk the fallacies, contemn the lies and in all expressions of disagreement strive to avoid disagreeableness.

As we stand in Nigeria

This afternoon, I came upon a sermon delivered by Pastor Tunde Bakare who recently was the presidential running mate of Retired General Mohammadu Buhari of the CPC, which in the Presidential elections of April the 16^th literally swept the majority in the North but hardly made an impact in the South.

I am of the conviction that the CPC was never a party that had the requisite national representative cachet to take the spoils from both their poor showings in all the elections apart from the presidential one, which meant even if they did pull the miracle of winning the race to head the executive arm of government, it would have been impossible for them to implement their agenda with a minuscule number of representatives in the legislature.

In fact, I would have expected the Machiavellian nature of Nigerian politics to have inspired the legislature to make the impeachment of the CPC stalwarts their one and only aim until they put a ruling party stooge in charge, but that is speculation.

The backstories are many

Now, Pastor Bakare is a passionate man, he is most probably a very religious man and as a preacher he can put together a very compelling case that would rank with the legal prowess of Perry Mason or some other amazing legal luminary however in a court the case is heard for both the appellant and the defendant with sometimes the use of expert witnesses, the moderation of a judge and the attentiveness of a jury before a decision is arrived at.

I will contend that despite the many facts, truths, analogies, allegories, inferences, proverbs and riddles, we have only heard a side of a bigger story which appears on deeper scrutiny to be a proxy feud between families intent on laying claim to some crown of leadership of a community.

There are many backstories to the claims being made and it is important that beyond the sensationalist headlines that newspapers will gravitate to in the quest for grandiose speculation and vile vituperations it behoves all that are fair and just to listen to the good 1:45 hours of this message.

To enter the discourse

It is probably best reviewed in Internet Explorer where you can adjust the slider, in Google Chrome, you are forced to listen to the whole lot and using Mozilla Firefox you will need to have the Apple Quicktime plugin installed.

An open mind is required and you probably want to take notes, the last thing you want to do is jump to conclusions or make assertions that were not volubly and directly made by the speaker.

The admissible evidence

It started from Feyi Fawehinmi’s status on Facebook where over a 100 comments and exchanges have clashed with passion. Depending on his security settings you might be able to view the exchanges, have to login in to Facebook or become his friend on Facebook.

Bakare: A bastard can’t be Yoruba leader: The National Compass Newspaper scores a tabloid style news scoop courting controversy with some excerpts of the sermon.

The sermon – It’s time to speak – Tunde Bakare, best reviewed in Internet Explorer or through Mozilla Firefox on systems where Apple QuickTime is installed.

Editorial: Friends of Nigeria are welcome

The security risk of ambassadors

A United States Ambassador to any country is in essence a security risk and in some cases a national security threat to the countries to which they are posted as envoys to protect American interests and elicit the workings of the system in which they find themselves.

The WikiLeaks diplomatic cables showed how ambassadors with their status gained access to the powers that be and teased out state secrets, modes of operation and details of governmental activity which they relayed back home for analysis and processing by the State Department.

The each cable does not in and of itself spell the complete truth but taken together forms a perspective from which the government of the United States could be ahead of the curve in their dealings with any counterpart state.

Getting their quarry

In Nigeria, Ambassador Robin Sanders appeared to have credentials that made for a smiling ruthless interrogator that served you tea and walked away with the brains of her guests fully informed of everything she wanted to know.

In the early 90s, it was Ambassador John Campbell who as a fellow of the Council for Foreign Relations projects himself as an expert on Nigerian issues.

Now, there is nothing to besmirch his esteemed scholarship and analytical skills, Nigeria has had no end of problem analysts, the fact is we know the problems and the issue is no more about identifying problems but the need for solutions that are well thought through, maybe radical, maybe visionary or maybe just insightful.

Nigeria is too big a behemoth for the radical but step-changes and tweaking in different areas of the polity might begin to seed the clouds for a torrential downpour that starts the sweeping away of many of the issues that plague Nigeria.

A foe almost vile

Unfortunately, Ambassador John Campbell for all the knowledge and insight he gained about Nigeria has not put himself within the solution seeking school of thought, rather he has become the herald of its problems, its failings, its catastrophes and its impossibilities.

In essence, his well-constructed and authoritative analyses are hostile, damaging, unfairly critical and can be used to instigate the prophecies of turmoil, discord, carnage, division and hopelessness that has become his core narrative.

Nigeria needs helpers not lepers, it needs friends not skeptics, it needs solutions not reminders of our problems and the role John Campbell plays to the world about Nigeria is patently unhelpful as he has refused to use his expertise accentuate the positive about Nigeria.

Within rights

That is not to say that there are no problems and we are reluctant to brook criticism but his actions have become inimical to Nigeria’s possible progress that the decision of the Federal Government not grant him a visa to visit the country and find a platform at the university founded by the president’s bitter rival to spew his vituperations is apt and acceptable even if generally uncalled for and possibly reprehensible.

Nigeria has simply exercised a right that other countries like the UK or the US exercises when they are worried that some personality with contrary and atrocious views might create a public nuisance and a security situation.

If anything, Nigeria’s friends are welcome, so are those who bring solutions to many of the problems we have found insolvable and insurmountable; those who seek to weaken the already fragile state of affairs cannot be considered friendly – at first the refusal of a visa might be a warning but they are on the slippery slope to being cited as persona non grata.

Acknowledgements

I wrote an analysis of WikiLeaks pertaining to Nigeria which was termed NaijaLeaks on my blog. Robin Sanders biography speaks for itself as for John Campbell his biography to the point he became ambassador is hosted on the embassy website.

His views as the Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations are aggregated here.

A columnist called him out on his views with a write-up for Business Day Online titled Between John Campbell and Goodluck Jonathan (2) and the news about the government’s refusal to grant him a visa appeared on many news outlets and reference the on offered by CBS News.

Technical tinkerers are the worst

Taking calls for old jobs

Late last week, having left a project in which my contribution was critical, I got a call from the project manager about some issues that they had encountered and were having problems resolving.

I agreed to take calls from the technical people and see what I could do to help. When the call finally came through and I was told what they had encountered my intuition and experience just felt it was a non-problem that had been complicated by unnecessary tinkering on the one end and a basic inability to understand abstraction with technologies.

A template is a template is a template

The environment we built provides for the ability to document the settings on one environment using a portable format and wizard assisted method in an export process and the using the same wizard to import the settings into another environment.

This follows a basic template format which allows for common elements to be transferred but requires that some unique elements be edited to reflect the new environment. All those elements had been documented.

One of those elements deals with recording the status of the environment, but the references are not updated and hence technicians cannot check the state of the environment for operational effectiveness – the simple solution is to delete the foreign references and select the local references.

Tinkerers are the worst technical people

Now, I know technicians like to see what goes on under the bonnet; I have no problems with that. I like to know how a television works because I studied electronic engineering but I don’t at a whim go poking a screw-driver in the back of my television just because it is fun, I could be electrocuted, quite easily, even if I knew exactly what I was doing.

I sometimes give deference to the simple notice – No user serviceable parts – I wonder if that appears on modern equipment nowadays, I suppose the warning is more the risk of losing your warranty if you try to tinker with the innards of your equipment.

After the conversation ended, I just knew the smart guy had tinkered with the template directly and wrecked the environment and was now looking for assurances that if he continued that dastardly act the functionality of the environment could be guaranteed.

The absence of logic and reason

Since I was away from home, I could not simulate the conditions he was describing, in fact, I should have asked at the beginning what symptoms had been presented to them before the tinkering started.

The problem with many technicians and engineers today is that they lack analytical skills, they’ll rather tinker and test unsound assumptions with trial and error – they might eventually solve the problem but you can never get them to walk you through the problem discovery to problem resolution because the critical ingredient for analysis is logic and reasoning and that is usually missing.

I fear something in the educational system has deprived many technical personnel of the ability to just stand back, review the situation, work out scenarios, dry run possible resolutions and test assumptions against sound logic. They can see what but never seem to know how or why.

They have to be seen doing something and thinking is not part of doing something, it is scary, I can assure you it is – because what ends up happening is every single issue requires a complete rebuild once they hit a bottleneck - that is time and money.

Doing it right the first time

From my wealth of experience, I have rarely had to rebuild anything I have built myself because of the time taken to understand what I am doing in the first place. However, in many cases I have had to rebuild what others have done because it becomes evident that certain omissions in the construction process are critical to the operation or performance of that environment and that omission cannot be corrected in live systems.

I am sometimes left completely exasperated by the lack of meticulous application of technical expertise in some of these places, I take my time because my philosophy is what is worth doing at all is worth doing well - the first time.

Yes, he did

Anyway, I was called by the project manager again today to arrange another meeting with the technical people and somehow they had tried to call me a couple of times during the day, well, the reason why I had not gotten the call was because the tinkerer had transcribed my number wrongly.

So, we chatted and I had to get the first bit of information out of him, indeed, he had edited the template directly – I simply said, I cannot believe that you edited the XML file, anyone should know that an automatically generated file is not there for tinkering.

Basically, even if you can identify the elements that need changing, there is no telling what other related elements are linked by coded or encrypted values, but in true cowboy fashion, he had edited the file and corrupted the environment.

Now, there is no way how I could then engage in a conversation with this tinkerer on the level of an experienced and learned technician with the expertise to distinguish himself properly.

And indeed, the conversation did get to a point where he remonstrated that he had not just started working with these environments and I was getting irritated with what was turning out to be an abject waste of my time.

The impossible question

By the time we got to the end of the conversation, he wanted to know if he could trust the environment he had built, well, I trust the environment I built, I trust the use of templates to transfer settings and I trust my ability to leave black boxes alone if I decide to use wizards to perform otherwise time-consuming activities.

I could not vouch for his skills or expertise and in the end, he decided I was not helpful at all, I am glad it ended that way because I would be an idiot to vouch for the kind of stuff he had been doing.

I called the project manager and gave him a piece of my mind asking that next time I would rather converse with others with constrained cowboy tendencies whilst intimating him of the fact that my time had really been wasted almost unforgivably.

Some so-called administrators should never be let near critical infrastructure for the sanity of the bigger world.

No Sir! We would not take the rap

Experiences at work

If you have been a follower of events on my blogs you would realise that my experiences in my soon to be concluded job have produced insight about the workings of management and staff that militates against due process and needed progress.

You will find in an example below a typical email I addressed to all concerned about an inordinate rush to implement a half-baked idea in order to gain kudos that would fade as the problems and cracks begin to show up just soon after it has been declared a success.

I would hope that my 15 years experience in IT would count for something, though I find it interesting also when my younger boss speaks in that kind of time frame, you’ll think he finished university at 13 - but then nothing is impossible.

The Background

As we had done many times before, the team I belong in has been a battering ram to impose, conquer and implement grand schemes of IT prowess. Some have been glaringly successful and others have just been nominally OK.

My boss is not a believer in collaboration; rather, all other existing implementations where we have been called to introduce change are discounted for what we can offer. The main thinking is, if we are not the ones implementing the idea, we are irrelevant and others would be called upon to do the job.

That, one would think is understandable for new projects, but surely, duplicating a process to see who gets there first or better in the same organisation is just wanton wastefulness but the stuff of internal political sophistry, presumably.

In this instance, we were to roll out a desktop platform with the attendant back-end infrastructure to co-exist with an already working setup, but without proper co-operation with the staff in that remote location.

When the boss sent the project team to consult with us about this, he also briefed them against me, saying they would encounter difficulty with me and they should railroad whatever I had to say.

Interesting situation, well, I ask difficult questions and I want sensible answers, I was employed to THINK - that is give expert advice - the day I stop thinking is the day my job is done.

The email below was written in December 2003 and the reply from my boss soon after, his promise to answer properly, the issues I raised was never fulfilled.

The email

Subject: The Project - Some truth explored.

Gentlemen,

After reading all the notes from Austria IT personnel and seeing the urgency to deliver impressed on us over the last few days; there may be one thing not accounted for in all the proceedings and possibly the one that could be at variance to all the political machinery brought into force to execute this project.

Everybody who has a technical interest in the project is doing everything to protect and highlight the quality of our profession judgment, expertise and standard of service we are accustomed to giving our customers.

It is the reason why we would test every facet before we sanction any action as delivered and the same reason they would want detailed insight into every process before they go ahead.

These interests would sometimes run counter to the management purpose because they represent realities closer to the ground than is available in executive overviews or project profiles, difficult to articulate but essential to resolve in order to fulfil all requirements.

This strata of the project is what project managers are supposed to have the responsibility of understanding, recognising and diffusing; serving properly as the communication channels and arbiters of the truth of the situation.

Where this is lacking, we (the technical interests in NL and AT) are called upon by our sides to manufacture excuses or half-truths that put a spin on reality and create the opportunity to be able to blame the other party.

You will all appreciate that we all want to deliver what works and if we are to take lessons we have learnt from the previous deployment; none of this is a turn-key deployment - too many parts are linked together to offer this solution.

Once it goes live we will encounter issues that can only be discovered in THAT live situation. {The problems I had to resolve yesterday evening regarding Office XP and the Anti-Virus are case in point.}

This is why even when everything worked in Region 1 and we cloned the scenarios to all the other 4 regions; they all presented different challenges and we would encounter some challenges with Austria no doubt.

Unfortunately, we have had no opportunity to fully document those challenges since we are still within the deployment phases of the present and have now picked up Austria.

What has not been articulated in this note simply presents food for thought regarding the way we have adopted high-visibility projects.

Regards.

The Reply

I will reply in detailed when ever more time is available, but can state I don't support several of the statements made.

Best regards

The Boss

The Analysis

I have planted thoughts of concern in the minds of about 8 people who received my email and what we get is a lame rebuttal, but carry on regardless of what was said.

Well, hardly 6 hours after my email was read, the outrageously ambitious but unachievable time table for the rollout was first moved back a week, then another 4 weeks within 2 days.

What I find amazing is the inability to marry desire with reality on the part of management, such that having a pilot for any project our team embarks on is considered a luxury.

In the end, we started getting information that this roll out was not as successful as it should be, but this is one time where after all we have done, and continue to do in a conscientious and professional manner.

The blame lies squarely at the feet of the boss for the way he politically mismanaged the issues that could have been better received and accepted if we were allowed to cooperate and collaborate with teams that provide support in the areas where we are introducing change.

Once again, No Sir! Technical solutions cannot make up for failed political and management issues.

News, Opinions and Propaganda

Why I do not want to be the first to know?

Gone are the days when you were able to listen to the news and be informed of what is going on either around you or around the world. Now, you listen to news programmes and have to decide when it has moved on from news to editorial opinion and then outright propaganda.

I would present is typical scenario. The news is - The Queen had tea today; that should be enough, but the new networks now have to fill in time and turn this piece of information into an experience. For that bit of news, you end up with analysis from the following quarters.

The Royal correspondent [explaining why the Queen having tea is worthy of a slot on the news programme].

An expert on teas [suggesting why tea is healthy, what teas are best and which particular brand of tea the Royals drink, also what to have with your tea and what constitutes a tea as a meal].

Finally, from a think tank an expert [explaining why the stocks on all teas would rise, and those on coffee would fall. How the Queen adds value to the corporate balance sheets of tea companies. Then a list of tea companies with a royal warrant. In addition, fair-trade initiative that allows for a good proportion of tea profits to go the development of farming communities]. Cut to a newsbreak - PG Tips advert!

Seeing this whole development of an experience based on the simple information of the Queen having tea has moved from news to opinions to a subtle brand of propaganda promoting teas. Not every bit of news gets this kind of treatment but many do have varying degrees of extremity falling into all those camps.

The Correspondent - news networks now expend so much in having someone on the ground where the news is breaking; never missing the opportunity to reinforce what you just heard the newscaster say.

Some networks use local correspondents and others fly in a correspondent. Then there are different correspondents depending on the issue, more like a correspondent for every major government department like trade, health or education and other general issues or functions like political, royal, war, sports or European.

However, being on the ground does not mean you get to hear the truth, what we get is still subject to the editorial slant the news network wants to portray.

The Expert - that now seems to be common currency for any issue - this person seemingly has experience on the topic in the news as a participant, authority or observer.

Experts are supposed to lend gravitas to a topical issue and create the impression that you cannot question what they say. We know that in some cases experts do not necessarily represent the truth, rather a perspective and strong opinion on which they are ready to stake their credibility for a price.

For other light-hearted issues, the expert becomes a "rent-a-quote" purveyor of one-liners to punch through a thought. Who selects the expert? Someone involved in the editorial process.

The Think Tank - a definition that saw its first use in 1959 - an institute, corporation, or group organised for interdisciplinary research (as in technological and social problems) sometimes also called a think factory.

My take on this is - consider the workings of a water closet (WC), the tank fills up and is not emptied till the toilet is used, and for as long as the toilet does not need cleaning by reason of usage, the water stays in the tank a ready resource for bacteria and other organisms to feast on.

Using that analogy, a think tank is that last place anyone should go to for ideas, which are stale, rehashed, or at variance with reality. I would rather work for a think river and if that resource needs to be harnessed, then work for a think pipe - there is a need for flow, renewal and ditching old concepts.

A river of thoughts would always be refreshing.

The two most popular global news networks belt out slogans like "Be the first to know" or "Demand a broader view", I really just want the news and I would make up my mind about what I have heard in the context of what I know.

Now if I really want analysis of an issue, then I would like to tune in to another channel that calls in the correspondent, the expert and the think tank, but keep them out of the news.

Being the first to know is only of value if the information gives you some particular advantage over those who were not the first to know, but with millions in that category you can you can only appreciate it if the news what specifically tailored for your hearing, but broadcast with your permission to others.

A broader view

I would like to demand a broader view after having heard the news and then require additional detail. This week the world celebrates 100 years of flight - that is the news.

The broader view is another programme on the progress and developments in aviation over the last hundred years that one company is being favoured over another for contracts to build some new flight belongs to another programme allowing the flourishing of subtle propaganda.

I used to be a news junkie, I still like to hear the news, but use the Internet nowadays to catch-up. The hyperlinks from those news pages to other related issues develop the news into the experience I am interested in, but I am in control of what I want to read.

I get my news from these sites.

The BBC

English news for expatriates on Mainland Europe

Nigerian News

The World News Network