Why power makes otherwise sane people brain-damaged

Almost everyone I know wonders aloud- and in silence- why people in power change radically; why they become so utterly disconnected from reality that they suddenly become completelyunrecognizable to people who knew them before they got to power; why they getpuffed-up, susceptible to flattery, and intolerant of even the mildest, best-intentioned censure; why they appearpossessed by inexplicably malignant forces; and why they are notoriously insensitive and self-absorbed.

Everyone who has ever had a friend in a position of power, especially political power, can attest to the accuracy of the age-old truism that a friend in power is a lost friend. Of course, there are exceptions, but it is precisely the fact of the existence of exceptions that makes this reality poignant. As the saying goes, “the exception proves the rule.”

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Look at all the power brokers in Nigeria-from the president to your ward councilor-and you’ll discover that there is a vast disconnect between who they were before they got to power and who they are now.

Also look at previously arrogant, narcissistic, power-drunk prigs who have been kicked out of the orbit of power for any number of reasons. You’ll discover that they are suddenly

The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) was recently in the news over the abysmal failure of foreigntrained doctors in the examination that would qualify them to be licensed to practice as medical doctors in the country. The Registrar of MDCN, Dr. TajudeenSanusi, had declared and insisted that 437 out of the 695 foreign trained doctorsfailed the Council’s qualifying examination. The exam took place November 15-17, 2017 after three months of training.

Sequel to this development, the forum of parents of the foreign trained doctors petitioned Senate President BukolaSarakialleging that the exam was marred by irregularities; accusing the Registrar of the Council of misconduct. The parents in a petition signed by SanusiAjiya and others accused Dr. Sanusi of tyranny, treachery, bias and extortion.

Reacting to the allegations, Dr. Sanusisaid “I firmly state that I am a loyal public servant with high regards for ethics and do not and will not conduct myself in the manner I have been alleged in the petition”. Also commenting on the matter, an external examiner to the Council DiliDogo, affirmed that the exam was done fairly; adding that the result is a normal again. They share our pains, make the right noises, condemn abuse of power, and identify with popular causes. The legendary amnesia of Nigerians causes the past misdeeds of these previous monsters of power to be explained away, lessened, forgiven, and ultimately forgotten. But when they get back to power again, they become the insensitive beasts of power that they once were.

So what is it about power that makes people such obtuse, selfcentered snobs? It turns out that psychologists have been grappling with this puzzle for years and have a clue.Dacher Keltner, a psychology of professor at the University of California Berkeley, extensively studied the brains of people in power and found that people under the influence of power are neurologically similar to people who suffer traumatic brain injury.

According to the July/August 2017 issue of the Atlantic magazine, people who are victims of traumatic brain injury are “more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people’s point of view.” In other words, like victims of traumatic brain injury, power causes people to lose their capacity for empathy. This is a surprising scientific corroboration of American historian Henry Adams’ popular wisecrack about how power is “a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.”

The findings of SukhvinderObhi, a professor of neuroscience at McMaster true reflection of the examination.The Senate Committee on Healthpromised to investigate the matter.

Now, before we go into discussing the result ofthe MDCN assessment test that was greeted with uproarfrom candidates and their parents, it is important and desirably relevant that we begin with an overview of where the foreign trained doctors were coming from. It would be recalled that MDCN had in July 2012 announced that no foreign doctors would be allowed to practice in Nigeria after October 2012 unless evidence is provided to prove that he/she was licensed to practice in his/her country of study.

In a recent interview granted Daily Trust on Saturday in itsDecember 2017 edition mentioned that only 8 out of the 695candidates that presented themselves for the assessment exam had practicing license from their respective counties of study. This simply means that if MDCN were to be very strict, only those 8 candidates would have been allowed to sit for the exam.Nonetheless, all the 695 candidates that presented themselveswere given the opportunity to prove their competence through the exam which, again, they failed. The high failure rate in the MDCN exam is evidently a true reflection of the University, in Ontario, Canada, are even more revealing. Obhialso studies the workings of the human brain.“And when he put the heads of the powerful and the not-so-powerful under a transcranial-magneticstimulation machine, he found that power, in fact, impairs a specific neural process, ‘mirroring,’ that may be a cornerstone of empathy,” the Atlantic reported.“Which gives a neurological basis to what Keltner has termed the ‘power paradox’: Once we have power, we lose some of the capacities we needed to gain it in the first place.”

Take President Buhari, for example. Before he became president, he was-or at least appeared to be-empathetic. Hesupported subsidies for the poor, railed against waste, thought Nigerians deserved to buy petrol at a low price because Nigerian oil was “developed with Nigerian capital.” He even said foreign medical treatment for elected government officials was immoral and indefensible, and wondered why a Nigerian president would need a fleet of aircraft when even the British Prime Minister didn’t have any.

“One of the major killers of our economy, apart from corruption, is waste,” Buhari said in London in February 2015. “Let me give an instance: Presently, there are more than 6 aircraft in the presidential fleet. What do you call that? Billions of naira is budgeted every year for the maintenance of these aircraft, not to talk of operational costs and other low percentage rate of those who had practicing license from their countries of study.

If you trained as a doctor or dentist in a country and actually qualified to practice, you should have been licensed to practice in that country. The lack of such practicing evidenceby many foreign doctors raises some academic and professional questions. If, for any reason, a foreign trained doctor was not licensed to practice by relevant professional authorities in his/her country of study, why must MDCN be under obligation to issue a practicing license to such a candidate especially when he/she failed the requisite assessment test required to be passed by everyforeign doctor?

Now, let us come back home. Besidessetting standards, MDCN is a reputable regulatory and professional organization in Nigeria with a mandate, among other functions, to determine who is qualified to practice as a doctor or dentist in Nigeria.It has a duty, therefore, of ensuring that standards are maintained. Authorities at the MDCNwould have betrayed there oath of office and failed in their professional duties if unqualified persons, no matter where they trained (at home or abroad) are licensed to practice medicine or dentistry in the expenses.

“You may want to ask what a Nigerian President is doing with so many aircraft when the Prime Minister of Britain flies around using the same public aircraft like an ordinary Briton. Go and check and compare with that of any developed country in the world: the office of the Nigerian President is a very expensive one in spite of our high level of poverty, lack, and joblessness….

“Now, for me, when we come into office, all this waste will be blocked and properly channelled into our economy….

“What is the difference between me and those who elected us to represent them? Absolutely nothing! Why should Nigerian president not fly with other Nigerian public? Why do I need to embark on a foreign trip as a president with a huge crowd with public fund? Why do I need to go for foreign medical trip if we cannot make our hospital functional? Why do we need to send our children to school abroad if we cannot develop our universities to compete with the foreign ones?”

Nothing but power-induced brain damage, which triggers narcissism and loss of empathy, can explain Buhari’s dramatic volte-face now that he’s in power. This fact, psychological researchers say, is worsened by the fact that subordinates tend to flatter people in power, mimic their ways in order to ingratiate themselves with them, and shield them from realities that might cause them psychic discomfort.

“But more important, Keltner says, is the fact that the powerful stop mimicking others,” the Atlantic reported.“Laughing when others laugh or tensing when others tense does more than ingratiate. It helps trigger the same feelings those others are experiencing and provides a window into where they are coming from. Powerful people ‘stop simulating the experience of others,’ Keltner says, which leads to what he country.

MDCN cannot afford to compromise practicing standards in Nigeria because medicine and dentistry involve human life. Furthermore, it would be cantankerously ridiculous for MDCN to lower its standards for the sake of foreign trained doctors. After all, their countries of study (which refused to license most of them) would never lower their standards for our home trained doctors who apply to practice there. To strengthen and enhance their own professional standards, foreign countries subject Nigerian trained registrars and consultants who apply to practice there to the same exam that qualify their doctors for houseman-ship. It is important for all stakeholders in this matter to understand that the academic achievements (however high or low) of foreign trained doctors (their countries of study notwithstanding) should not and cannot determine the standards set by MDCN.

Talking about quality control in the MDCN exam as well as the validity of its results, the MDCN Registrar explained that external examiners are available to moderate all aspects of the exam. As obtains in every exam, external examiners scrutinize and moderate exam questions, marking schemes and the results. External examiners’ decisions supersede that of every board of examiners. One, thus, finds the personalization of the MDCN exam by parents of affected candidatesinconceivable. They accused Dr. Sanusi of bias against their calls an ‘empathy deficit.’”

Researchers also found out that excessive praise from subordinates, sycophantic drooling from people seeking favors,control over vast resources they once didn’t have, and all the performances of power conspire to cause “functional” changes to the brains of people in power. On a social level, it also creates what Lord David Owen, a British neurologistturned-politician, called the “hubris syndrome” in his 2008 book titled In Sickness and in Power.

Some features of hubris syndrome are, “manifest contempt for others, loss of contact with reality, restless or reckless actions, and displays of incompetence.” Sounds familiar?

But it’s not all gloom and doom. Powerful people can extricate themselves from the psychological snares of power if they so desire. Professor Keltnersaid one of the most effective psychological strategies for people in power to reconnect with reality and reverse the brain damage of power is to periodically remember moments of powerlessness in their lives-such as natural disasters, poverty, etc.-orhave what American journalist Louis McHenry Howeonce called a “toe holder,” that is, someone who doesn’t fear you and who can tell you uncomfortable truths without fear of consequences.

Winston Churchill’s toe holder was his wife, who once wrote a letter to him that read, in part, “I must confess that I have noticed a deterioration in your manner; & you are not as kind as you used to be.” Was Aisha Buhari performing the role of a toe holder when she publicly upbraided her husband in a BBC interview?

I don’t know. I do know, however, that it didn’t have much effect, precisely because Buhari has no self-awareness of the literal damage that power has done to his brain. I hope someone gives him-and other people in power in Nigeria- this piece to read. children for studying medicine abroad. But how?

As they accuse Dr. Sanusi with their index fingers, they failed to realize that four other fingers are pointing back at themselves. Believing that not all medical schools abroad meet minimum standards including training facilities to secure MDCN accreditation if they were to be in Nigeria, it would be unfair for parents to transfer the blames of sending their children to such medical schools to MDCN or Dr. Sanusi. The mental ability of a student to cope with the intellectual demands of studying medicine and dentistry is another factor for parents to appreciate. Sometimes, some parents compel their children to study medicine or dentistry for various reasons even when such children lack the aptitude for the course.

Let us remember that the Nigerian Law School has the same kind of exam for its lawyers, whether home or foreign trainedthat wish to practice as lawyers in Nigeria. Candidates also fail Law School exam but such hasn’t been in the news as the case of foreign trained doctors. As parents, we should counsel our children to consider failure in a particular exam as an inspiration to work harder to pass it in the next attempt. More so, those who fail the MDCN exam could apply to re-write it again. May Allah (SWT) guide all those who work hard to succeed in their endeavours and grant us the sensitivity to shun sentiments in specialized matters involving human life, amin