Benjamin Franklin Effect: the simplest way to choose our leaders II

If, as the theory says, you do something nice for someone, it tends to make you like the person more; and if you do something wicked to someone, it tends to make you like them less (irrespective of the receivers actions), how can we use this idea to remove the guesswork in choosing our leaders?The […]

If, as the theory says, you do something nice for someone, it tends to make you like the person more; and if you do something wicked to someone, it tends to make you like them less (irrespective of the receivers actions), how can we use this idea to remove the guesswork in choosing our leaders?
The answer is simple.  We should ask ourselves one question.  What has he given to the people before?  Our history shows that all those leaders who did great things gave a lot to the people. Giving can be money.  In Where I Stand, Mahmud Gumi relates that when Ahmadu Bello the Sardauna of Sokoto was murdered in 1966, his murderers, Nzeogu and the gang lamented, “who’s going to pay these overdrafts?”  Sarduana gave the people so much that he had to borrow to do so. And because he did so, he loved the people; and because he loved the people, he was able to make the people feel government’s presence in their lives.  Is it any wonder that after more than 40 years nobody has been able to match his achievements even in a tiny state in the north?
The gift of a leader to the people doesn’t have to be money. According to Adamu Adamu, when Archbishop John Onayeikan came first overall in the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) exams, Sarduana travelled long distance (when the roads were still uncomfortable) to celebrate with his son – John.
We can give many examples of leaders who gave and gave; like Murtala Muhammad who returned his property to the government.  You see, you can’t stop loving whom you give and you can’t stop giving to whom you love. Accordingly, one feature (quality leadership) describes all these leaders who sacrifice their money, time, comfort, life and so forth.
What about civil servants who don’t have much to give?  In this case we can ask if they gave more than 100 per cent in their previous assignments.  In our recent history, people like Dora Akunyili (NAFDAC), Ribadu (EFCC), El Rufai (FCT) and Ngozi Okonjo (under Obasanjo) come to mind. These people worked so hard that we couldn’t help but see the difference they made.
Similarly, we can recast the question and ask ourselves “has he taken from the people before?” Did he steal government money and time or did he unfairly take the land of his neighbours?  Believe me, someone that has stolen before will steal again.  According to Ben Franklin Effect, that’s the way the human mind works.  This thief has already resolved the cognitive dissonance and has concluded that the people deserve it.  Thinking that he has learnt his lesson or has repented is a dangerous mistake.
Further, in answering the question “what has he given and what has he taken?” age, ethnicity and religion do not matter.  A thief is a thief.
Using Ben Franklin Effect to explain the apathy of our leaders
We often wonder: what are our leaders doing with all the money?  Can’t they see the suffering of the people?  Don’t they visit their villages and see the hopelessness?  Can’t they see people dying in the hospitals? Can’t they see that the roads are bad?  And finally, are they humans?
The world used to wonder the same thing of the Nazis.  Nazi Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann as the head of Gestapo Department IV B4 was responsible for deporting Jews into ghettoes and then into concentration camps. Under this self-proclaimed “Jewish Specialist” many Jews died. In 1961 during his trial in Jerusalem for crimes against the Jewish people, the world attentively watched their televisions, trying to envision what Eichmann would be like. They expected a monster, infinitude of hatred, or probably the devil incarnate.
 After watching the trial however, Hannah Arendt reasoned in her contentious essay “The Banality of Evil” that Adolf Eichmann was just a regular man. Eichmann is you and me, she said. There was nothing extraordinarily evil about him. Additionally, Eichmann averred that he actually had no ill-will toward the Jews. However, Eichmann was hanged and cremated. His ashes were then sprinkled across the Mediterranean Sea; on the other hand, Arendt was ostracized by the Jewish community for the rest of her life.
Arendt was a philosopher not a psychologist hence she couldn’t conduct experiments to explain her argument. Yet the world yearned for explanation on how such cruelty was possible.
To answer the question, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted the most famous experiment in psychology to date.
Milgram puts out a newspaper advertisement offering male Americans around the vicinity of Yale University to participate in a psychology experiment about memory and learning. In the experiment, 40 participants were asked to shock a “learner” for every mistake the learner made in word pairing test.  The electric shocks range from 15, slight shock to 450, danger: severe shock and XXX.
Of the 40 regular guys that participated in the experiment, 68 per cent delivered the maximum electric shock even when their victim shouted blood-curdling screams and became silent.
One of the reasons why these guys continued with such dehumanizing punishment was the environment.  Yale is an authority institution; so the participants must have reasoned that (as despicable as their actions were), Yale scientists must know what they were doing.
This is the same way that Aso Rock, National Assembly, and government houses are authority structures.  So if the occupants are doing something mean to the people, those who join them will reason that they must know what they are doing.
However, the most important point in Milgram’s experiment that is relevant to this discussion is that in some variations of the experiment, the shock givers became tyrants and dictators.  Without orders from anybody and in the absence of the researcher, these dictators continued to give the maximum shock.  This is because by this time they’ve resolved that their victims deserved the punishment no matter how cruel.  So when our leaders start the process of tormenting the people, little by little they become set in their ways.
But why do Nigerians tolerate the cruelty of their leaders?
The answer lies in prayers.  How so?  Remember the Franklin Effect says the giver loves the receiver and from our discussion we’ve seen that even praying for someone is giving?
Nigerians always pray for their leaders in the hope that God will reform them.  It’s obvious that for several decades God has not answered these prayers, however, offering prayers for the leaders makes it easy for the people to love the leaders and even easier to forgive them; in the manner that a parent finds it quite easy  to forgive an errant child.  Some will confess that they love a certain leader for no apparent reason.  So our prayers –quite obviously – have not had any positive effect on the leaders but on us, the prayer warriors.
Because of this factor, Nigerians applaud their leaders even for idiotic things like replacing an incompetent cabinet with a more incompetent one.
Studies by researchers such as Florida State University psychologist Nathaniel Lambert have shown that when you pray for someone you do not only love him, but you also forgive him.
This writer remembers that even as a child after prayers in the mosque, supplications were always offered for the leaders irrespective of their actions.  And I know that Christians also do the same thing in the churches.
Should Nigerians stop praying for their leaders and focus their attention on choosing leaders who are givers?