“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep”……Saul Bellow

Is Nigeria breeding high level educated illiterates or an intellectually lazy generation?……Why you should never jump to conclusions based on headlines or photos..

What is Critical Thinking?

“The Objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement”

Why are people jumping to conclusions reading headlines and posting photos without critically analysing the situations?…..People have been circulating this photo on social media claiming President Buhari and his team went to Germany for Negotiations unprepared, what are the processes of negotiations?….and let us analyse the possible case scenarios…..

 Why did President Buhari Travel to Germany to see the German Chancellor?

1. Cooperation between the two Nations, which includes: Shared interests, further cooperation on security, humanitarian for IDPs, rehabilitation of North-East, including Trade and Economic Relations.
2. Foreign Investments.

• Government negotiations don’t just happen and are not concluded overnight, it is a long process that must have been set in motion for weeks, months, or even years before sitting around a table with the negotiation team having the due advantage setting most of the conditions…..these are due to negotiation processes and bureaucracy.
• The negotiations can follow both formal and informal procedures done behind closed doors with technical experts at the negotiation stage, either in total secrecy before the final decisions are announced to the public or every milestone and progress is announced.

Possible Scenarios.

First Case Scenario……Pre-Negotiation stage!

Looking at the above reasons why Buhari Traveled, if the negotiations are just starting, Nigeria is the country seeking cooperation and direct investment, hence Nigeria will be the one to put together a proposal to the German government. The possible case scenario here will be that Angela Merkel and her team are perusing the proposal from the Nigerian Government over lunch or dinner before handing the documents to experts to work on the two proposed areas. The Germans may seek further documents for further clarifications at this stage through questions, and someone from the Nigerian side must take notes…..this is clearly shown in the picture. It is always advised that when negotiating, one or two people should take notes so that there is full concentration from those talking.

Second Case Scenario…….The Final Stage!

An agreement has been reached and both parties have converged to sign the documents which has been drawn up by the German government.

Note!

There 3 stages of negotiations….1) Pre-Negotiation (First Phase), 2) Conceptualization (Second Phase), and 3) Detail Arrangement (Third Phase)….The Second Phase which is the Technical stage is never done in public neither in front of Camera men or photographers, this is because a lot of private information is exchanged between both countries. Majorly Corporations and Countries sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) at this stage just in case an agreement is not reached hence such information can never be discussed in front of Cameramen to the public.

What we are witnessing in this photo is a high level briefing allowing a press coverage either at the Pre-Negotiation Stage where the Nigerian government has just submitted a negotiation proposal to the German government and its being flicked through or the German Government has concluded on the final stage of the Negotiations and are handing over their documents or both parties are actually signing the agreement reached on all negotiations which are the final documents and the documents are on the German side because they are signing their part of the documents.

Everything was later sealed with champagne and dinner!

 Conclusions!

On October 14^th, 2016, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that “In Terms of cooperation, the German Government will earmark 18 million Euro for Lake Chad and about 50 million Euro for overall area”.

These goes to prove that this was a conclusion stage where both parties had come together to sign the agreement documents and celebrate it over lunch or dinner…….these negotiations must have been going on for months and part of the German governments conditions must have been that President Buhari must end the Boko Haram Insurgency in the North-East, it is not surprising that the same day President Buhari left for Berlin was the same day Boko Haram released the 21 Chibok girls stating the participation of the International community which may have included the German government and hence their confidence that peace will be restored to the troubled region and the government’s willingness to invest 68 million Euros in that region.