How you dress determines how you will be addressed, Senator Kashim Shettima obviously spoke to issues at the NBA conference with an eloquent and immaculate sequence of thoughts. He spoke like an intellectual and gave tailored fit solutions to the problems of governance but his excellent presentation was coloured stained by his choice of dressing. He gave people the chance to trend about his dress sense to the detriment of his brilliant posturing.
The first law of attraction is beauty, every other thing comes second – the reason advertisers hire beautiful girls to model their products. For Sen Shettima, it was a missed chance to sell his brilliance in Lagos.
Even though the venue of the conference was strategically choreographed to favour one candidate against the the rest, the intellectually sound Shettima I know would have dislocated the plot of the organisers- much as he tried, his dress sense gave him out.
And for the NBA to become like an Opa William or AY Live show dishing awards to speakers is how low the gathering of learned men can be. More like a school debating outing where speakers are feted with mundane accolades. That award to Peter Obi as best speaker was needless and too childish. NBA can do better next time.
Frankly musing.
Haruspice writes from Abuja
