smartphones and apps created a huge
opportunity to take it to a whole new
level. Yahoo decision makers obviously
did not see this but when I look at the
general feel of Whatsapp, it does serve
as a reminder of what Messenger used to
be – only this time it is on our phones
and other gadgets. Whatsapp was bought
by Facebook for $19 Billion. Why does it
look like this was another miss for Yahoo
and a miss that was right under their
very noses? Well, it was a miss that was
developed by their own people! Irrelevance renders the wealth of the
wealthy useless in its ability to keep them in
office. It makes the intelligent become intel-
ligent fools. It has no regard for power and
neither does it respect titles. You can be rich
and irrelevant, powerful and irrelevant and
also Intelligent and irrelevant. You can be a
title holder and still be irrelevant.
The biggest mystery is how very
intelligent and very exposed people at
the helm of affairs somehow were not
able to place their finger on what was
needed to turn the company around.
They were intelligent but somehow,
their intelligence did not serve them
well. Could there be something more
important than intelligence? The sad conclusion is that the relevant are
not always intelligent. Great shall be the
day when the intelligent in Africa become
relevant!
Now, let’s go to the other end of the
world to a totally different scenario.
Robert Mugabe was the strong man of
Zimbabwe. He had come in as a liberator
whom the people cheered into power. He
was loved by all and celebrated the world
over. No one could have imagined that
just as the people rejoiced at his ascent
to power, they would once again, hit the
streets in their large numbers and rejoice
when he was forced out of power.
When Sani Abacha announced on the
31st of December 1983 that the Nigerian
army had terminated the Shehu Shagari
administration, it was received with great
joy. Abacha was the hero of the day. This
coup eventually led to Muhammadu
Buhari being named head of state but
Abacha remained the hero.
Years later when the 1993 presidential
elections got annulled by Ibrahim
Babangida who had himself overthrown
Buhari in a palace coup, it was Abacha that
Nigerians looked to for help. Very senior
and respected figures in the Nigerian state
requested and asked Abacha to take over
the government. He did and there was
once again rejoicing that Abacha would
be the savior of Nigerian democracy.
Well, this did not happen and the Abacha
regime would become one of the most
repressive and totalitarian regimes in
Africa’s history.
Many people lost their lives just for
opposing him. Many of Nigeria’s top
minds had to flee the country and live
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in exile. The day Abacha died, everyone
remembers where they were when they
heard the news. There was joy everywhere.
Even the police manning checkpoints on
the roads were congratulating people as
they drove by. The joy across Nigeria was
real and it was visibly expressed on the
streets. Abacha was dead.
How is it that for people like Abacha and
many others across the continent, people
rejoiced when they came into power and
years later when they were forced out of
power, the very same people again rejoiced.
What do Yahoo and Abacha have in
common? They both got to a point where
there was no more connection between
them and the people. Their reality was
not the actual reality. They eventually
discovered that money, intelligence, power
and titles could not save them from the
power of disconnection from people. They
had the money, the intelligence and the
power. They had the titles but none of
these worked for them. They were learning
first hand that nothing can save or deliver
them from the consuming power of
irrelevance.
Irrelevance renders the wealth of the
wealthy useless in its ability to keep them
in office. It makes the intelligent become
intelligent fools. It has no regard for
power and neither does it respect titles.
You can be rich and irrelevant, powerful
and irrelevant and also Intelligent and
irrelevant. You can be a title holder and
still be irrelevant.
Relevance is the power that is greater
than money, greater than titles, greater
than power and is beyond intelligence.
The decline of any entity can always be
traced back to the day when it began to
lose relevance. It has destroyed companies,
nations, religious movements, theories,
kings and queens as well as emperors and
dynasties. Irrelevance is a tsunami that
sweeps away everything in its path and not
even prayer can save the most pious from
the consuming power of irrelevance.
Of Medical Doctors And
Serial Killers
I used to suffer from very severe
asthmatic attacks and as such I carried
an inhaler everywhere I went. I however
went through a season where I did not
have a single attack for years then one
day, something in the air triggered off
a massive attack. I quickly went to the
chemist and asked for the inhaler that
I used to use many years ago and I was
told that the company producing it had
stopped production a couple of years
before. They suggested a new inhaler that
I had never heard of before.
Now, imagine I was a doctor who had
graduated from medical school many
years ago and whose only knowledge
was the old inhaler that I had asked for.
Such a doctor though intelligent would
be irrelevant. I often joked with my late
dad who was a doctor, that if doctors like
him made prescriptions based only on
what they studied in medical school, they
would be de-facto serial killers. The drugs
have changed. The reactions of humans to
the drugs have changed.
You are not intelligent today because
you were intelligent yesterday. You are
intelligent because your intelligence
is solving a problem. Your intelligence
is relevant. Why do we have very
intelligent people who fizzle out with
their intelligence over time and why on
the other hand are there people whose
genius transcends generations? What is
the difference between the two?