Clausewitz, re-imagining the practice of strategy

 Abstract

Strategy and organization theory enjoy a reawakening interest in historical analysis. In this essay, we suggest that this engagement should include strategy’s linkage to the history of military strategy. We develop our argument through an exegesis of Carl von Clausewitz’ treatise On War. We claim that Clausewitz’ theorization of strategy advances the ongoing scholarly conversation on the practice of strategy in three specific ways. First, he defines a distinctive locus for the notion of strategy as the bridge between policy and tactics; in so doing, he addresses what has been criticized as strategy’s conceptual drift. Second, with Clausewitz, we can pose the question of strategy’s effectiveness in a critical, reflexive way. This opens up a way to answer the “so-what” question that has hampered strategy as practice research. Third, as an educator in military affairs of the Crown Prince, Clausewitz invites reflection on strategy’s pedagogy. Following Clausewitz, strategy may not want to concern itself with distilling the next practice from past history but immerse strategy students in great detail in history in order to develop their critical faculties.

Keywords: Clausewitz, history, policy, strategy as practice, tactics, war

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Managing the herdsmen-farmers crisis in Nigeria

Managing the Herdsmen-famers Crisis in Nigeria: The Public Relations Approach 1

Abstract

The incessant violent clashes between herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria have less positive benefits for both parties and Nigeria as a whole. It is a fact that sustainable development can never occur in a rancorous atmosphere. This, to a large extent, if not nipped in the bud will affect the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goal 2, which is aimed at ending hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture by 2030. In this view, this paper adopts symmetric model of communication as the basis for understanding how public relations can be applied in solving farmers/herders crisis. The paper finds out that clashes between herders and farmers is an evidence of negligence by the government to sensitize the citizenry towards achieving a common goal of tolerating each other. It also identifies reduction in output and income of crops as a result of the destruction of crops by cattle. This situation has translated into low income on the part of the farmers who take farming as a major occupation. As such, the paper recommends that public relations approaches such as press releases, conferences, publicity, etc., should be utilized appropriately in making farmers and herders accept modern methods of cattle rearing and farming so that one’s business cannot interfere with another thereby managing both the current and future crises. It also recommends that messages from public relations events, with full participation of both parties, can change the atmosphere of suspicion that currently characterizes the relationship between herdsmen and farmers thereby creating room for peaceful coexistence.

Keywords: Public Relations, Crisis, Herders/Farmers, Conflict, National Dailies, Coverage

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Government complicity in Nigeria terrorism

GOVERNMENT’S ‘COMPLICITY’ IN NIGERIA TERRORISM

SUMMIT ON TERRORISM AND INSECURITY IN NIGERIA

AT WASHINGTON DC JULY 13TH TO 5TH, 2020 

ABSTRACT:

Doing justice to this topic, requires the approach to solving a jig-saw puzzle. This is so because the proofs are basically imbedded in subterfuge, overt and covert actions. This is reminiscent of the statement made by Late General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s former Head of State, on the 17^th November 1993 when he said, “if insurgency lasts more than 24 hours, the government have a hand in it”. Boko Haram insurgency have festered for more than 10 years now (2020) and still ongoing. Also, General TY Danjuma former Chief of Army Staff and Defence Minister of the Federal Government of Nigeria corroborated the above statement on March 25^th, 2018; he said inter-alia that, “the armed forces of Nigeria are not neutral; they collude with the armed bandits, Nigerians should defend themselves, else they will all die one by one”. Furthermore, General (Dr) Olusegun Obasanjo Former Head of State and President Federal Republic of Nigeria, said in a published statement available online and the print media, dated 24^th January 2018, inter-alia that, “the President Buhari’s government is pursuing and executing Fulanisation and Islamisation Agenda against the indigenous (Autochthonous) people of Nigeria”. Suffice to state that, what is today known as terrorism in Nigeria, is a one-man inspired family-military expedition ostensibly expressed as Islamic Jihad. According to Dr. Ibrahim A. Modu and Dr. Yakubu Tahir Maigari: the Uthman Danfodio’s Jihad of 1804 was seen by the Fulani, as a political movement, to establish themselves as the Masters of Hausa land; indeed, the social and political texture of present-day Nigeria has continue to be conditioned by the consequences of the Jihad viz:-

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