While mistakes can help you grow, some errors are undeniably dangerous.

Mistakes may be useful, but aren’t some less desirable than others? And doesn’t high performance—something most of us aspire to—mean making fewer mistakes? Rather than making blanket statements about mistakes being all good or all bad, it is helpful to differentiate between different kinds of mistakes and clarify which mistakes we want to pursue and how, and which mistakes we want to try to avoid.

Sloppy mistakes

Your heart seizes up when you see what just happened. You “replied all” to your entire company when you meant to write back to just your colleague Kim, with whom you were sharing a cute cat video. One by one, the replies start rolling in. Including one from your boss.

Congratulations! You have just made a sloppy mistake.

Sloppy mistakes happen when you’re doing something you already know how to do, usually because you lose concentration or you’re focused on the wrong thing. We all make sloppy mistakes because we’re all human. However, when you make too many of these mistakes, especially on a task you intended to focus on, it signals an opportunity to enhance your focus, processes, environment, or habits. My sloppy mistakes frequently come from focusing intently on one task, which results in collateral damage in the periphery. This might mean breaking the occasional glass because I am too focused on solving a work problem and not paying enough attention to my surroundings.

We might be tempted to conclude that sloppy mistakes offer few learning opportunities; after all, we don’t want to fret over every little blunder. But since even sloppy mistakes can have serious consequences, any time we make one, it makes sense to pause and reflect.

In leading team meetings, one sloppy mistake I have made is failing to pay enough attention to the dynamics within the group, the balance of who is talking, or any interpersonal tensions. When I discovered that was happening often, I had to identify what to try differently. I began taking two minutes before meetings to think about the people I was meeting with and my objectives for the meeting, and to remind myself that, as a leader, my job was to facilitate the development of an effective team, rather than focus intently on solving the problem at hand.

The next time you make a sloppy mistake, ask yourself, “Is this important to me? Do I want to change something so this doesn’t happen again? If so, how can I adjust my focus to avoid making this type of mistake in the future?”

‘Aha-moment’ mistakes

Aha-moment mistakes happen when you do something as you intended, but realize it was the wrong thing to do. At that moment, you have a powerful realization—an aha!—a strong, new insight that expands your understanding and awareness.

You installed a rainwater harvesting system as you intended, but then realize that such projects need mechanisms for maintenance.

These kinds of mistakes can be hard to spot and can go unnoticed, even over a lifetime. How many leaders continue to do something that frustrates the people they lead—sometimes for years—while remaining unaware of the effect of their actions because they never solicit or otherwise receive feedback?

I used to be in the habit of emphasizing important comments my colleagues made by repeating their remarks in my own words and explaining why I thought they were significant. Eventually, I learned that I may have been making my colleagues feel I was trying to take credit for their ideas, or implying that their voices would not be heard unless a man in a position of power repeated what they said. I could have done a better job soliciting feedback and fostering psychological safety so that others might have spoken up, and I would have learned the lesson sooner.

These aha moments can occur in a wide variety of work situations. A salesperson can’t seem to close a deal—until a colleague overhears her and tells her to slow down and take time to understand her customer’s needs. A project manager realizes that her team keeps missing due dates, so she builds in a timeline confirmation step for every milestone, and makes sure to give people the opportunity to ask for more time if they need it.

The signal to pay attention and reflect comes when you are surprised by the effect of your actions. You do something expecting X, but Y happens instead. That’s a cue to move into the Learning Zone and identify what is surprising and what lessons it might teach you. Surprises are precious sources of learning, and they make life more interesting.

Stretch mistakes

Whenever you’re working to expand your current abilities and try something new, you’re bound to make some errors along the way. These kinds of stretch mistakes are positive—a sign you’re growing. If you never make stretch mistakes, it means that you’re never truly challenging yourself.

When you find yourself making and then repeating a stretch mistake, it’s a good opportunity to explore whether you’re mindlessly going through the motions or truly applying yourself to improving your abilities. If you practice throwing a Frisbee and it keeps taking a nosedive, it’s time to change your technique or seek out some tips to make that Frisbee sail through the air.

Other times, your approach to learning itself may be ineffective. You might be experimenting when deliberate practice would be more effective for acquiring the desired skill. In such instances, you might ask how others have gained competence in the same or a similar area. If you’re concentrating and still feeling stuck, it might be time to bring in a coach, a mentor, or another source of guidance and objective feedback.

It also could be that you’ve simply set your stretch goal too high. Could you aim instead for some milestone between where you are today and your ultimate goal?

Say you try to put together a conference and it fails miserably. You could, upon reflection, gather the lessons learned and try again, perhaps bringing to the team people with expertise in areas that fell short. Or you could recognize that you know too little about too many aspects of what is involved, and instead set a goal of organizing a smaller internal meeting that doesn’t involve as many activities you haven’t done before. That way, you can focus on learning some of the elements that will prepare you to later expand to a full conference.

You want to seek out stretch mistakes by taking on new challenges. But when you find yourself stuck and can’t seem to make progress, it’s time to reflect, identify a different strategy, and then adjust your approach to practicing.

When you meet your goal, it’s time to identify a new area of challenge and continue stretching yourself.

High-stakes mistakes

While mistakes can help you grow, some errors are undeniably dangerous. After all, no one wants the person in charge of security at a nuclear power plant or the captain of an aircraft to be making sloppy mistakes. Nor do you want to force employees to do a teambuilding activity that could lead to injury.

Luckily, you can put processes in place to try to minimize high-stakes mistakes, and over time, you can develop an intuitive understanding of when to take risks and when to play it safe.

Aside from life-threatening or potentially dangerous situations, there are many Performance Zone activities you might consider high stakes. A championship final can certainly be considered a high-stakes event for a sports team that has trained for years. Or if losing an important customer relationship could result in a significant drop in revenue, you might want to play it safe in meetings with that customer rather than experiment with risky ideas.

It is okay to see these events as performances rather than learning opportunities and to seek to minimize mistakes and maximize short-term performance. These are the moments you may want to focus on harvesting dividends from the time spent in the Learning Zone.

Even then, we can often embed low-stakes mini experiments that don’t involve safety concerns within high-stakes events. For example, if you’re doing a presentation with an important customer who loves classical music, you might somehow incorporate that into your presentation, and then reflect on whether it had an impact. That could mean anything from including cello music during the breaks to using classical music metaphors in the presentation itself.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to what you could test. Here are a few examples:

Focus more on asking questions so the client can clarify the problem.Focus more on offering solutions.Focus more on stories.Approach the interaction more formally.Approach the interaction less formally

In a high-stakes event, if you don’t achieve your goal of winning the championship or the customer, you can reflect on the progress you’ve made through time, on the approaches that have and haven’t helped you grow, and on what you can do to grow more effectively.

On the other hand, if you achieve your goal, win a championship, or land new business, that’s great. Celebrate the achievement and how much progress you’ve made. Then, ask yourself the same questions to keep stretching. Continue engaging in the Learning Zone, challenging yourself, and growing your abilities.

Excerpted from The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action by Eduardo Briceño. Copyright © 2023 by Growth.how LLC. Excerpted by permission of Ballantine Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Eduardo Briceño is a global keynote speaker and facilitator who guides many of the world’s leading companies in developing cultures of learning and high performance.

Fast Company

Nigerian producers want the central bank to set a trading band for naira to help stem weakness in the currency and reduce the impact on manufacturing costs.

Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, a industry body, said limited dollar liquidity and high exchange rate costs had weakened industrial production since currency reforms were announced in June.

“Despite the recent reform to unify all forex windows, the exorbitant premium that persists between the official and parallel exchange rates have further stalled manufacturing operations,” it said in emailed report on Wednesday. “The short-term remedy will require managing the floating exchange rate system.”

The government in mid-June allowed the currency to depreciate as part of measures to attract inflows and help revive the economy. The naira weakened as much as 40% in the official market. While it and the parallel market rate initially converged, the gap has since widened as a shortage of dollars prompted a surge in demand for foreign currency.

The naira was at 767.21 per dollar on the official market on Wednesday compared with 920 in parallel trade.

Deputy Governor Kingsley Obiora had indicated that the central bank wouldn’t allow a fully free float.

“No central bank’s forex intervention will be effective without boosting the level of liquidity and transparency,” the producers group said.

Bloomberg

National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has asked states along River Benue to evacuate residents in flood-prone areas due to the opening of Lagdo dam in Cameroon.

Mustapha Ahmed, director-general of NEMA, spoke on Wednesday during the national emergency coordination forum meeting, in Abuja.

According to Ahmed, Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, and Anambra states could be flooded due to the release of water from the dam.

Other states at risk of being flooded are Enugu, Edo, Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa.

He said the meeting was held following the alert received by the ministry of foreign affairs concerning the planned release of water from the Cameroon dam.

He said Cameroon has opened the dam at the rate of 200 cubic meters per second, adding that the level is about 18 million cubic meters of water daily.

“The states on the downstream of River Benue are Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, Anambra, Enugu, Edo, Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa states,” he said.

“Information available from the flow level of the River Benue at Nigerian Hydrological Service Agency (NIHSA) gauging station at Makurdi stood at 8.97 meters as of Aug. 25, 2023 compared to 8.80 meters on the same date in 2022.

“Also, NIHSA has provided that the flow level of the River Niger system, especially at Niamey, Niger Republic, remains stable at a normal level of 4.30 meters.

“Similarly, inland dams including Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro reported consistent flow regimes.”

The director-general of NEMA called on stakeholders to commence evacuation immediately, adding that the government would continue to work with other partners to mitigate the impact.

The Cable

Chairman of the Committee of Chief Medical Directors of Federal Tertiary Hospitals, Emem Bassey, has said other African countries are offering doctors from Nigeria $3,000 to $4,000 in salary.

According to him, the amount is about four times the wages doctored get in Nigeria.

Bassey, who is the CMD of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, said the health sector was going through a major crisis in terms of manpower with health professionals leaving for higher-paying countries.

He also said doctors often went on strike because the government failed to meet their demands.

Bassey said this when he appeared before the House of Representatives ad hoc Committee probing employment racketeering in federal government agencies alongside heads of other health institutions in the country.

He said, “Some African countries are also beginning to poach from Nigeria. The West Coast is looking for our specialists. So many people are now going to places like Sierra Leone and Gambia and the wages they earn $3,000 to $4,000. It is about three to four times what they earn back home. So we are beginning to see that people are leaving for other African countries too.

“The health sector is currently undergoing a major crisis in terms of manpower. What we are seeing is that medical specialists, not just doctors, even nurses, in fact, even more nurses are leaving. Doctors, nurses, laboratory scientists, physiotherapists, radiographers, and all manner of health professionals are leaving the country in droves.

“That is part of the problem we are facing. Replacement of these health workers is a major problem. This is because even though we are usually granted approvals to recruit, getting the waivers is a tortuous process.”

He said due to the urgency of the need to replace various health professionals who leave, it is difficult to comply with federal character in recruitment.

He also noted that previous governments had reached ridiculous agreements because of their urgent need to end strike actions.

Bassey added, “A strike should be the very last option, but one of the things we have seen has been the fact that we see threats and threats and threats. I would say, that governments in the past had negotiated resolutions that were not feasible, just because they wanted to end a strike.

“Now, they have agreements that they cannot implement. And then after a certain period, six months or one year and you have not implemented it, people now go on strike. So we need to sit down together and negotiate.”

Chairman of the Ad hoc Committee, Yusuf Gagdi, urged the doctors to be patriotic by staying back to contribute to the development of the country, even if they have better options abroad.

He said the committee would work towards addressing the need to balance compliance to the spirit of federal character and filling up urgent vacancies in the health sector.

Gagdi said, “I admit there is a lack of advanced medical facilities in our health sector. This is a fact and we must as governments pay attention to that. Where we are confused is the aspect of lack of patriotism.

“You ( Medical doctors) are produced by Nigerian institutions. We admit the brain drain and are trying to find solutions. We are happy to see you here. A lot of you have connections maybe based on the value of your intellect to be in the developed countries and provide services to them. But most of you find fashion in adding value to your own motherland and fatherland.

“What are you telling your co-professionals about patriotism, about giving back to the society that gave you the knowledge? We challenge you to be true to your own profession and the issue of morality. You cannot disown your father no matter how poor he is for taking you this far to go and adopt somebody’s father. Nigeria is our country.

“Nigeria produced us as medical doctors, no matter the rot within our public sector in terms of remuneration. Let us work together and see how we can find solutions to that. But let us remain in Nigeria to serve our own country.”

Gadgi added, “We would review your submissions entirely. For these institutions that have pending recruitment cases, we would interface with them uniquely. For those of you who don’t have one, we will look into your issue.

“You have a very good defence for now having a balanced sheet in terms of federal character. Nigerians have listened to you. So whatever this committee at the end of the day recommends to the government it is going to be done and it is for our own good entirely.”`

Daily Trust

Managing Director of the Nigeria Railway Corporation, Engr. Fidet Okhiria has revealed that the monthly revenue realised from train service operations on the Abuja-Kaduna rail line has significantly dropped from N500 million to N1 million monthly.

It would be recalled that bandits detonated a bomb on the rail track of Abuja-Kaduna train and successfully immobilised the train between Katari and Rijana.

Subsequently, the attackers kidnapped several passengers who were later released after an unspecified amount of ransom was paid.

However, speaking at an inspection of the Idu train station yesterday in Abuja, Okhiria said the essence of the tour was to correct some issues highlighted by the Minister of Transportation, Saidu Alkali, which include escalators, elevators and allowances of security men.

“Before the attack, we were earning N500 million a month and after the attack, we were earning barely one million and we must operate and provide service to the people, which is why we are glad about the minister’s surprise visit to highlight some of these operational issues.

“Currently, we do two return trips against the 10 we were doing before that incident and we were running from 6 am to 10 pm but now we have been advised not to exceed to 6 pm. So, we are hopeful that when the security situation normalises and they are able to advise us,  we can start the full operation so that we can break even.

“We have paid two months out of the 5 months outstanding and we hope to conclude it soon. They know that before now, we didn’t delay and we pay before the end of every month when everything was going on well”.

Daily Trust

Soldiers in Gabon appointed the head of the republican guard as the OPEC member state’s new leader, hours after placing President Ali Bongo under house arrest and annulling elections in which he secured a third term.

The putsch in the former French colony is the ninth in sub-Saharan Africa in the past three years, and follows a coup in Niger last month. The military takeover drew condemnation from the US, Nigeria, France and the African Union, as it sparked a slump in the nation’s dollar bonds and raised concerns of a spill over of the selloff to other African countries with high political risk.

General Brice Oligui Nguema will serve as Gabon’s transitional president, according to a statement read out on state television in the capital, Libreville, on Wednesday evening. The junta said it will maintain a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the nation of 2.3 million people, and urged residents to return to work on Thursday.

Nguema’s appointment came after army officers appeared on Gabonese state television in the early hours of Wednesday to announce they’d canceled an Aug. 26 vote and dissolved the country’s institutions. President Bongo is under house arrest with his family and medical doctor, while one of his sons has been detained, the officers said in a separate broadcast.

Gabon’s dollar bonds due June 2025 and November 2031 were the worst-performing in emerging markets on Wednesday. Shares in French mining group Eramet SA, oil and gas producer Maurel & Prom SA and a listed unit of TotalEnergies SE, which all have operations in Gabon, sank in Paris trading.

The country is one of OPEC’s smaller members, pumping about 200,000 barrels a day, and has abundant manganese deposits, though these resources haven’t translated into better living standards. About one-third of Gabon’s population live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

The putsch raises anxiety about a potential contagion of coups in Africa and increases pressure on regional bodies including the Economic Community of West African States to act to restore civilian rule in Niger, after the 15-nation bloc threatened to use military force to compel the military junta to relinquish power.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Monday that if the bloc doesn’t restore democracy, “all the presidents across the region are more or less aware of the fate that awaits them.”

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US was closely watching the developments and had accounted for all its embassy personnel and troops in the country.

“We remain strongly opposed to military seizures or unconstitutional transfers of power,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. “We urge those responsible to release and ensure the safety of members of government and their families and to preserve civilian rule.”

Since 2020, there have been two coups each in Burkina Faso and Mali, as well as military takeovers in Chad, Guinea, Niger and Sudan. The latest putsch highlights the inability of the African Union to prevent coups, said Charlie Robertson, head of macro strategy at FIM Partners UK Ltd. in London.

“The ineffective African Union has sat back and watched regime after regime toppled in Africa and failed to reverse any of the coups in recent years,” he said. “The African Union needs to step up and take some responsibility for what’s happening on the continent, before the coup contagion spreads further.”

The continental body, which suspended Niger from all its activities following the coup in the West African nation, said it “strongly condemns” the army’s actions in Gabon, according to a post on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, whose nation is Africa’s largest democracy, echoed the criticism.

“The president is working very closely and continuing to communicate with other heads of state in the African Union toward a comprehensive consensus on the next steps forward with respect to how the crisis in Gabon will play out into how the continent will respond to the contagion of autocracy we are seeing spread across our continent,” Tinubu’s office said in a statement.

Gabon has been ruled by two men for more than five decades.

Bongo was first elected president in 2009, four months after the death of his father, Omar Bongo, who had held power since 1967. He secured a second seven-year term in 2016 in the closest election in the nation’s history, and violence and looting ensued after his victory was announced.

The ruling family’s grip on power has come under pressure in recent years. Soldiers launched a failed coup in 2019, months after Bongo suffered a stroke that sidelined him for almost a year.

Ex-colonial power France has maintained strong ties with Gabon, despite widespread concerns about its democracy and human rights record. President Emmanuel Macron visited Bongo in March, in a move widely seen as an expression of support.

France’s record of backing ruling families, dictators or presidents-for-life in the region in the name of stability has long been a source of a resentment in its former colonies. It has fed anti-French sentiment that has been exploited by coup plotters.

Bloomberg

All UN sanctions against Mali will end on August 31 (today), after Russia vetoed the proposal by France and the UAE to have them extended. Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, said that the draft completely disregarded the concerns of both Bamako and Moscow.

The Franco-Emirati draft would have extended both the sanctions and the mandate of the UN Expert Group charged with monitoring Mali, through August and September 2024, respectively. It received 13 votes in the UN Security Council, but failed because Russia voted against it. China abstained.

The council rejected Moscow’s alternative draft, which would have ended the Expert Group mandate immediately and given the sanctions a “final”12-month extension. Japan voted no, and 13 other members abstained. 

According to AP, Moscow went after the Expert Group because its latest report criticized the Russian private military company Wagner, accusing it of “violence against women, and other forms of grave abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law” to “spread terror among populations.”

Bamako has justified its outreach to Wagner Group by saying the Russian security advisers were far more effective against jihadist insurgents – unleashed across the Sahel in the wake of NATO’s 2011 regime-change intervention in Libya – than the French or the UN. 

The Franco-Emirati draft “took absolutely no account of the concerns of the Malian side and the position of the Russian Federation,” Nebenzia said after the vote, explaining his veto.

Nebenzia reminded the Security Council that Mali itself requested the sanctions against eight individuals in 2017, as part of a peace process. The Russian resolution, he said, “takes into account the position of the African members of the Council” that the sanctions should remain in effect for some time in order to promote the implementation of the peace agreement, but “not turn into an instrument of external influence on domestic political processes in Mali.”

France, the former colonial power in Mali, has already withdrawn all of its troops from the West African nation at the insistence of the military government in Bamako. Mali has also given some 15,000 UN peacekeepers and civilian staff until December 31 to depart the country. 

“We hope that in the future, sponsors of resolutions will prioritize a pragmatic approach and the interests of the host country in order to avoid unnecessary confrontation in the Security Council,” Nebenzia added. “Especially in the circumstances where a compromise agreement could have been made if certain delegations had the political will to do so.”

Russia Today

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian military says six servicemen killed in helicopter incident

Six Ukrainian servicemen were killed aboard two helicopters while they were "carrying out missions" in eastern Ukraine, the military said on Wednesday.

There was no indication what happened involving two widely-used Mi-8 helicopters on Tuesday.

A military statement on Telegram aid the men were "carrying out missions" in the sector of the Russian-held eastern city of Bakhmut when they died.

The news site Ukrainska Pravda said the incident occurred near Kramatorsk - a large town west of Bakhmut in Donetsk region, theatre of much of the fighting in Russia's 18-month invasion of its neighbour.

Ukrainska Pravda said the two helicopters were "completely destroyed" and the bodies were found at the site.

An air force spokesperson identified as Yevhen Rakita told public broadcaster Suspilne that the men aboard were officers.

He said a service for the men would take place on Thursday in the central town of Poltava but their identities were not being made public for security reasons.

** Zelenskiy decries corruption in military medical exemptions

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy decried on Wednesday what he described as systematic corruption in medical exemptions to people avoiding military service, saying the system was subject to bribes and mass departures abroad.

Ukraine has made a crackdown on graft a priority as it presses on with a counteroffensive 18 months into Russia's invasion. Uprooting corruption is also a key element in the country's bid to join the European Union.

Zelenskiy said the National Security and Defence Council had considered data showing the extent of false exemptions, bribe-taking and flight abroad since the February 2022 invasion. The investigation of dubious medical exemptions was still being conducted, he said.

"There are examples of regions where the number of exemptions from military service due to medical commission decisions has increased tenfold since February last year," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

"It is absolutely clear what sort of decisions these are. Corrupt decisions."

He said the investigation had exposed corrupt practices in different regions and by officials in different positions, involving bribes ranging from $3,000 to $15,000.

Zelenskiy said a separate analysis was needed to determine the numbers of people who had fled abroad, largely on the basis of medical commission decisions.

"We are talking about at least thousands of individuals," he said.

Zelenskiy this month dismissed all the heads of Ukraine's regional army recruitment centres.

He said more than 100 criminal cases had been opened in a wide-ranging probe launched after a graft scandal at a recruitment office in southern Odesa region last month.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian air defenses repel multiple coordinated drone raids – MOD

The Russian military has prevented a series of attempted Ukrainian drone strikes overnight, with over half a dozen unmanned aircraft shot down across five regions spanning from the Ukrainian border to Moscow, the Defense Ministry claimed early on Wednesday.

Russian air defense units prevented an “attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack by airplane-type UAVs on Russian infrastructure,” the military said in a brief statement.

Shortly after midnight, three unmanned aircraft were shot down in the border region of Bryansk and at least one intercepted over Oryol, some 200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Around 2am, another drone was detected and downed over Kaluga Region, to the southwest of Moscow, the Defense Ministry added in another statement.

At 2:30am a plane-type unmanned aerial vehicle was downed in Ryazan Region.

At about 3:30am, another Ukrainian UAV was intercepted and crashed over the territory of Moscow Region. The hostile UAV was downed while heading towards the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said, adding that it caused no damage or injuries on the ground.

At 4am yet another UAV was downed over Ryazan Region, according to the Defense Ministry.

At 8:30am, Bryansk Region governor Aleksander Bogomaz reported another incident, saying that two drones had targeted a TV tower in the city of Bryansk. Both aircraft were shot down by air defenses, he wrote on Telegram, adding that the fires at their crash sites had already been extinguished.

Earlier, the Russian aviation authority announced the emergency closure of airspace over the Tula, Ryazan, and Kaluga regions and parts of Moscow Region, following explosions at an airfield in northwest Russia.

At least 10 drones attacked Pskov, according to the regional governor. Most were brought down by air defenses, but some reportedly caused damaged at least two Il-76 transport aircraft. There were no reports of casualties.

Pskov is about 700 kilometers north of Ukraine, but only 30 kilometers from the Estonian border. Latvia is about 60 kilometers to the southwest. Both are NATO member states. To reach the city, drones launched from Ukraine would have to fly over eastern Belarus.

Ukraine has previously used “drone swarms” to attack Crimea, but has not sent more than a handful of UAVs in the direction of Moscow, where they caused minor property damage to the city’s financial district. The Kremlin had dismissed the attacks as an “act of desperation,” intended to distract from Kiev’s failures on the battlefield.

** Russia cripples Ukrainian military command, intel centers in overnight precision strike

Russian forces delivered a strike by long-range precision weapons, wiping out Ukrainian military command and intelligence centers over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday.

"Overnight to August 30, Russian forces delivered a multiple-launch strike by airborne and seaborne long-range precision weapons against enemy military command and intelligence centers," the ministry said in a statement.

The goals of the strike were achieved. "All the designated targets were destroyed," the ministry stressed.

The routine is now very familiar: the sudden putsch, the president confined, the nocturnal statement by new, camouflaged rulers. Today it is the turn of Gabon to wake up to find a military coup has brought sudden and unexpected political upheaval in a country that had been considered relatively stable.

On this occasion, the men in uniform introduced themselves as members of the Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions. If successful, the coup will be the eighth in west and central Africa since 2020 to lead to a violent – or at least coerced – change in regime. The most recent was last month in Niger.

Soldiers have also seized power in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Sudan in the past two years. Now other leaders of Gabon’s neighbouring states will feel threatened – notably Denis Sassou Nguesso in Congo-Brazzaville – and with some justification.

So far, the ousting of Ali Bongo Ondimba as president after 14 years in power appears to have significant popular support, although it is difficult to tell so early. This would not be surprising. Many of the military coups in recent years have been greeted by enthusiastic public celebrations. Some have been organised for the media to win swift legitimacy, but many have been spontaneous outbursts of excitement at the simple prospect of change.

Few doubt Gabon needed a shake-up. The president inherited power from his father, who ruled from 1967 until his death in 2009. Gabon, a member of the Opec oil cartel with a production of 181,000 barrels of crude a day, should be relatively prosperous. Yet the quality of life of the vast proportion of its 2 million inhabitants speaks volumes about the decades of mismanagement, clientelism, corruption and blatant political rigging that the Bongo dynasty brought.

The exact motivation for the takeover will soon become clear. It is unlikely to be the protection of Gabon’s institutions from security or other threats, as the new apparent rulers claimed in their first address. The lack of concerted regional, African or global response to the other recent coups is likely to have been a major factor in the soldiers’ decision to gamble their lives and livelihoods on a grab for power.

This failure has been more obvious than ever in recent weeks. Threats of military intervention from Ecowas, the west African regional bloc, have yet to help restore Mohamed Bazoum, the democratically elected president of Niger ousted in July, and sanctions are not having much effect either. Military regimes in Mali and Burkina Faso appear entrenched. And in Sudan, the biggest threat to the military factions that seized power in 2021 is one another.

In the case of Gabon, the military can count on popular support and that of the opposition. A recent United Nations development programme survey of thousands of people living in countries where coups had recently occurred found strong democratic aspirations. This is true elsewhere, too, and is being reinforced as Africa becomes more urban and educated. But above all, there is a desire for change as soon as possible – even if this means it comes wearing combat fatigues.

There is a wider trend to watch as well. Many of the recent coups are in former French colonies, and one cause is undoubtedly the revived memory of a long, exploitative period of rule from Paris. Africa watchers have long worried about the inherent instability of the system left by France after it ended its direct colonial control across a swath of the continent. This toxic mix of political manipulation, financial control, military intervention, extractive commercial enterprise and cosy relations between elites is far from unique to Francophone Africa but is very entrenched there, even today.

Gabon, too, was a French colony – as recalled by Emmanuel Macron when he met the French-educated Bongo in Paris in late June. The photos of the two presidents shaking hands may not have done either much good.

Every coup is different but many outcomes resemble one another. The new leaders of Gabon will almost certainly follow the same path as their counterparts farther north and announce a “transition period” before new elections, which will not be held for a long time. In the meantime, tearful pleas by Bongo from his official residence, to which he is now confined, for supporters to “make some noise” are likely to fall on deaf ears.

The Guardian, UK

Since the National Bureau of Statistics published figures that put the unemployment rate at 4.1 per cent, they have faced sweltering criticisms. Earlier in April, they announced they were changing the metrics used in calculating the unemployment rate in the country to align with the International Labour Organisation guidelines. Since last Thursday when they released a jobs report that revised the unemployment rate (previously calculated at 33.3 per cent as at Q4 2020) to 4.1 per cent for (Q4 2022 and Q1 2023), they have been criticised for asserting that the Nigerian unemployment figures are at par with some of the most developed countries/diverse economies. Without any evidence to substantiate such assertion, the NBS go explain the wizardry of their numbers taya!

That no one exactly celebrated the progress the NBS reports is understandable. A healthy amount of scepticism must greet a 4.1 per cent unemployment rate announcement. Anywhere in the world, figures are considered political. Contrary to received wisdom that numbers objectively assess reality, they can, in fact, mythify. In the hands of unscrupulous politicians, they bestow a patina of legitimacy upon lies.

For Nigeria where politicians solicit empiricists to use their scientific tools to produce a truth that will find no feet to stand on the grounds of reality, the former Statistician-General of the Federation, Yemi Kale, must have faced a lot of pressure when he headed the NBS and published figures that directly refuted the propaganda of the previous administration. And that is why any statistics emanating from the agency that can be deviously seized on by a non-performing government, will be scrutinised for traces of chicanery.

Now, despite the fuzziness of their statistics, I will give it to the NBS that they at least explained that what has changed is not the reality of Nigerian unemployment but simply the measuring rule. They stated that the lower unemployment figures are not based on government performance but mere standardisation of the definition of unemployment to conform to international standards. According to them, under the old mensuration system, they categorised ‘unemployed’ as anyone of working age who worked below 20 hours, or did not work, but searched and was available for work during the week of the survey. Under the new calculus, what counts as being “employed” is to work for pay/profit for just an hour within the week of the survey. They said the new marker aligns with “international best practices.”

Well, this is one of those instances where “international” and “best practices” are mutually exclusive because the NBS re-categorisation is problematic on several levels. As Kale said when interviewed on Arise’s Global Business Report on Monday, while he was at the NBS, the committee in charge of reviewing the minimum number of work hours thought such a counting measure does not make sense in Nigeria because the income generated within that time frame was not necessarily livable. On that score, I hundred per cent agree. Nigeria should not have adopted that rule because it merely distorts the truth of our local situation. In some other countries, doing the bare minimum at least qualifies you for social/welfare benefits, but what does it mean in Nigeria?

Conforming to international standards must not come at the expense of accurately discerning the truth of your situation. Figures should clarify reality, not occlude it. Facts are important, but they are also manipulable. Numbers can be twisted by the neck until they tell a story you need them to tell. One can arrive at a 100 per cent employment rate in Nigeria if we expand the definition of what constitutes “work” until it includes the time we spend volunteering in religious houses (in expectation of spiritual blessings), or even soliciting “urgent 2k” on social media. Virtually everyone will be classified as “occupied” even though that will not make what they do an occupation in the real sense of it.

That said, the other important point made by the NBS boss, Semiu Adeniran, but which was overshadowed by the controversial figures, is that Nigeria’s problem is not so much unemployment but of underemployment. He explained that the underemployment rate stood at 13.7 per cent in Q4 2022 and 12.2 per cent in Q1 2023 making it a much bigger issue. While we can take issues with the metrics used to calculate “unemployed,” his point is instructive and should not be lost in the melee of arguing whether the unemployment rate is 4 or 40 per cent.

In Nigeria, the opposite of “unemployment” might not be “employment” but underemployment. Our trouble is that people are working and doing so ungainfully. Where I vehemently depart from Adeniran is his definition of underemployment as a situation “whereby persons engaged in one activity or the other yet indicate interest and availability to take on more work, due to inadequacy of the jobs they are engaged in at the time.” Classifying underemployment in Nigeria that way is rather unhelpful. People already labouring under the yoke of a non-regenerative economy cannot transmute their under-employment to employment even if they worked 24/7. The reprieve they need will come from doing quality work, not simply more of the same.

Unemployment is underutilisation of skills, not an issue of mere work hours. In Nigeria, the problem of underemployment presents itself as an internal brain drain. We talk a lot about people’s leaving the country as depriving us of the best brains but there is an ongoing internal crisis as well. People trained in professional skills have had—to stave off the biting reality of unemployment—to take on jobs mismatched with their skill set. In many cases, they get trapped in those lowly jobs and ultimately fritter away the skills they acquired in the university or polytechnic.

There are millions of young Nigerians who also formally passed through an apprenticeship in one vocational training or the other but have been retarded because they cannot come up with the capital necessary to set up shop. Lots of them like that have had to abjure their training and take on Okada/Marwa riding, street hawking, or even running a gambling store. Some veered, hoping to save enough money to buy—in many cases—the imported machines they need to set themselves up, but the increasing foreign exchange recedes their plans right before their eyes. So many of them like that, frittering away the prime of their lives doing work that neither improves their skill set nor guarantees a future. Yet, under the new rule of the NBS, all those people will be classified as “employed.” In the real sense of the word, they are not.

Finally, one of the most interesting aspects of the NBS report is their response to criticism, especially the one that came from Kale. Their retort was far more telling of the intellectual disposition of the agency than all the figures Adeniran reeled out.

The PR boss, Wakili Ibrahim, undercut the integrity of the agency by making snide comments at Kale, an attitude that suggests that their whole revision of standards is a personal affront to the ex-boss they despise, not because Nigeria needs such clarity. Also, Ibrahim’s understanding of how “work” works was so limited that it put a question mark around their job report. In clarifying that the new calibration system factored in the changing nature of work, Ibrahim said, “Look at lecturers; a lecturer can go lecture for one or two hours, and they will pay him about N200,000 or N300, 000 in one or two hours. So, what is the basis of ignoring those ones?”

Well, as a lecturer, I can tell him—for free—that when we lecture for two hours, we spend up to 10 hours on preparation. That makes at least 12 hours of work. If the NBS does not have that basic clarity, why should we trust the figures they generate?

Punch