(1) Laws of Teamwork- Application to the Biafran Struggle
(2) The Polimatics of Governance in the Biafran Nation
(3) Social Intelligence and Leadership Strategies in the Biafran Struggle
(4) Managing Unmanageable People
(5) The Application of Vision Congruency to the Biafran Struggle
Laws of Teamwork- Application to the Biafran Struggle:
- INTRODUCTION:
First Law:
The Law of Compatibility:
What we are about to study now in the Laws of Teamwork is not new to most of us but certainly new in their application to the Biafran Struggle. The First Law of Teamwork is actually a spiritual law that stipulates that “Two cannot work together except their hearts and minds are in agreement”. This spiritual law is actually recorded in Amos 3:3 in the Bible. It speaks in absolute term. “Two cannot work together unless they are in agreement”. You cannot force them to work together. It is impossible. They can work separately for the common good provided that they do not work as rival cults but as complimentary comrades.
One person does not make a team. It takes at least two persons to make a team. In every team, there must be a team leader and team players even if the leadership functions are shared between the people. We are all leaders and followers at different levels of authority. Please take note of the term I have used. I said levels of authority and not levels of power. I hope we know the difference between Power and Authority. In contemporary social science, there is debate about the two terms. Some social scientists use the two terms synonymously while others differentiate them. In Law, we differentiate the two terms. In simple definition, authority is the right to do something while power is the ability to do it. A person may have the right to do something but has no power to do it while another may have the power to do something but has no right to do it.
All of us are leaders and followers at different levels of authority. You may think that the Pastor of a Church is the leader of the church but when you see the little girl called the Worship Leader on the pulpit, you will know that she is a leader. Everybody will obey her as she gives the command. She asks everybody to stand up and they will stand. Jump up and they will jump. Clap your hands and they will clap. Turn to the person on your left and smile and shake hands with him or her and they will obey. Shout Hallelujah and they will shout. At that stage of the process, the little girl is leading everybody including the Pastor and all will obey her. What is she exercising? She is exercising authority because she was appointed to the position of a worship leader. She has no power to compel you to obey her but you obey her because she is in authority.
Now, let us use the Football Team as an example of Teamwork. What do you think the Football Team should have or should do in order to win the match? Or, put in another way, what are the requirements for a Football Team to perform excellently and win the match?
(a) Selection of the Winning Team: There must be a Team selected for the match. Members of the Football Team may be hundreds or thousands but the best eleven players will be selected to play the match. Selection of the Team players is the foundation that determines whether the Team will fail or succeed. Who selects the players? The Team Leader. So there must be team leaders and team players in teamwork. Four groups of people emerge in this example, namely:
(i) The Team Leaders
(ii) The Team Players
(iii) Team Members not selected to play
(iv) Spectators who are neither members nor players.
(b) Synergy of the Eleven Players: The players are placed in the positions where each has the best skill. Some are at the back, others playing the midfields, others playing the left and right wings, etc. Their aim is to score the winning goal. They coordinate their fieldwork very well, passing the ball to one another without allowing the opponents to take the ball until they pass it to their team player who is at the vantage position to strike it into the goalpost. Only one person’s leg will strike the ball into the goalpost. He scores the goal and all will rejoice together because the Team has worn the match. The victory belongs to all of them.
(c) Obedience to Leadership: There are different styles of leadership which we shall examine later. Some leaders force and manipulate their followers into obedience; some intimidate their followers into obedience; some influence their followers with financial enticements; some use what the bible describes as “enticing words of men’s wisdom, feign words, manipulative power of words” to win followers while others win the people by good examples of leadership. Today we shall not discuss the different types of leadership styles and the most appropriate for the Biafrans. Whatever method of leadership, whether coercive, manipulative, fraudulent or genuine, it is clear that the leader will have some followers. This is why false teachers and false prophets have multitude of followers. The players are required to obey their team leader. It takes humility to obey and follow the leader. We shall yet discuss leadership styles but for now, it is sufficient to emphasise that the players are required to humble themselves and obey their leader.
Somebody must be in charge of the affairs of the Organization at any given time. Every person is required to obey the person in charge. The leader is the person who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.
- The Law of Preparation:
The discipline required to prepare oneself for a major battle or for an encounter with an opponent determines success or failure. The example of the football team we used in the beginning comes handy again. Have you noticed that the players are required to exercise and practise regularly to keep themselves healthy and fit for the match? In the same way, a student who wants to pass his exam must prepare very well for it. In the case of the Biafrans, I do not know how many are preparing themselves for the great task ahead. The things I have observed among the Biafrans have made me to wonder whether we are not wasting our time and resources. Are the Biafrans prepared now for independence? For those advocating for violence, are the Biafrans prepared now to engage Nigeria in a battlefield of war? For those advocating for the use of political power, are the Biafrans prepared to wrestle political power from their opponents? Another great question, are the Biafrans prepared now to govern themselves if they are granted Independence in this month of August 2016?
There is something called a Nation-In-Waiting in the jurisprudence of self-determination based on the expectation that a new nation shall be born. It is akin to a child who is conceived and stays in the womb for nine months before coming into the world. Now, what do you think will happen if that child is not properly formed in the womb before his birth into the world? We have seen that some premature babies die at birth while some are put in the intensive care units and administered with drugs by doctors and nurses until they survive.
The essential rules for the child to be born alive are as follows:
(1) The mother should be careful with the pregnancy- not quarrelsome, not fighting against everybody;
(2) The mother should stay healthy because the life of the child depends on her own life;
(3) The mother should not boast before her neighbours that her unborn child will be great and conquer the world;
(4) Even if the child is destined to be King, the mother should not disclose his destiny to the world otherwise the ruling king will kill the child at birth; see Matt. 2: 1 – 23.
(5) The mother should not activate the spirit of jealousy in those who are not blessed with pregnancy;
A pregnant woman is vulnerable. A nation-in-waiting is also vulnerable. If the pregnant mother does not abide by these rules, the child may be aborted. The neighbours may conspire to kill her and the child. Let us apply these rules to the Biafran Struggle. It is sad that one of the Biafran activists and his followers have created enmity between the Nation-In-Waiting and our neighbours. Many people are now afraid of the coming of Biafra instead of waiting for it with joy.
Those misguided Biafrans boast a lot. Without getting their independence, they are already boasting of what they will do to some of us who do not believe in their methodology; what they will do to the British, to the Americans, to the Igbo leaders and elders who they accuse of being traitors and saboteurs.
We shall yet talk about a nation-in-waiting in another lecture. We shall meet it in Policy and Strategies, Polimatics and Social Intelligence as applicable to the Biafran Struggle. You heard that Nigeria got Independence in 1960 but became a Republic in 1963 after three years. Also Trinidad and Tobago became a Republic after 18 years of gaining Independence. Do you know the difference? We shall discuss these issues later.
The time for preparation provides us with the opportunity to either give birth to a great nation and get it right or lose it forever. It is in this period of preparation that we must learn the art of governance, public accountability, obedience to leadership, humility, submission to authorities, due process, etc. I have encountered two people in the Biafran Struggle who have become subject of Case Studies. Both of them were leaders who were required to provide records of accounts and reports of their stewardship but they started to insult us, abuse us, accuse us, and speak all manner of evils against us. In fact, one of them was asked to produce the record of all the members who have paid their dues for the five years we have operated under this Legal and Diplomatic Method but he lost all his senses of decency and became mad at us.
If we do not learn the discipline of probity and public accountability now, surely the corruption in Biafra would be monumental. In fact, the leaders of Biafra would steal all the money in the Biafran Central Bank and burn down the buildings and all the records! Are the Biafrans prepared now to govern themselves?
By Barr Emeka Emekesri