Nearly four thousand years ago in Egypt a troubled Pharaoh looked across the stateroom in his palace, searching for an administrator to sit atop a new food security policy. He got none among the scores of advisers around him.When a domestic aide prodded the king into looking beyond his cabinet and into casting his net wide he finally found a slave-turned-prisoner to derive the program that saved Egypt and other nations from death.Several centuries later in October 1962 United States President John F. Kennedy battled what has come to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. How would he deal decisively with the Russians who were installing deadly missile sites in Cuba, a stone's throw from the US, without triggering an all-out war likely to be fought with nuclear weapons' Like Pharaoh before him, Kennedy had to turn to those outside his cabinet to arrive at the magical solution: a blockade of Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from the island. It worked, thanks to the American leader's massive reliance on external ideas.Now back to our era in Nigeria. Early this year, President Goodluck Jonathan also had a raw challenge that required radical and imaginative decisions in tackling the petrol subsidy quagmire.His predecessors had always heeded the jaded counsel of removal of so-called fuel support fund and using money saved therefore to develop society. But the point, as it was with Pharaoh and Kennedy, was to think out of the box, look away from the beaten path and walks the route not taken. It required a revolutionary approach, not a resort to the lazy old ways.Ben Murray-Bruce, Chairman of Silverbird Group, opened up that untaken road as the debate over whether or not to retain the subsidy raged. Why must it be the poor who would always be at the punishing end under a so-termed regime of deregulation' Ben Bruce argued at a Town Hall meeting in Lagos.'Since Independence in 1960' he lamented, 'successive administrations have paid little attention to the poor. Government has played the role of Robin Hood, unfortunately though in reverse: they have taken from the poor to subsidise and sustain the rich. I urge the Federal Government to reverse that role and play the real Robin Hood and now take from the rich and give to the poor.... it is not a sin to be poor. The government must practise what it preaches. If it does and implements the Ben Bruce Transport Policy it will go a long way in easing the untold hardship the increase in the cost of petrol will have on the Nigerian masses.'He then proposed the unthinkable: a massive binge on the transport sector to the tune of N318b over the next ten years and N79.6b Fund to subsidise bus and taxi services across Nigeria!Ben Bruce crashed the ancient fort of the anti-subsidy army which often assails us with the argument that government support for the poor is out of fashion worldwide when he referred to the US, Belgium, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Finland etc as countries that intervene heavily in the transport area by as much as 70%.He incensed the cut-support-for-the-poor authorities further with a yet crazier idea: 'all school children in uniform, senior citizens over 60 and children above 10 must travel free of charge by public transportation....'The position of the Silverbird Group chief isn't too difficult to understand. He isn't opposed to removal of petrol support fund; but he says 'put the Ben Bruce Plan into place first before the removal in order not to worsen the fragility of the poor and in turn destabilise the society in the long run.'It's such radical ideas we need to truly transform our society, not the same delivery of worn-out old clichs asking perennially for a cut in government spending to enrich the rich. 'There are smarter ways to cut government spending and dumber ways,' wrote Washington Post last year when deriding the US Republican Congressmen who insisted on shaving off a big chunk of President Obama's budget.If the weirdness of Ben Bruce's ideas affrighted us from the route he revealed, such radical views have nonetheless helped in altering the fortunes of tottering societies, individuals and corporate bodies not least his own singular contribution to the cinema industry in Nigeria.When the cinema lay dead and final obsequies had been concluded such that no film-maker, writer, producer/director or entrepreneur dared suggest a return to renewing interest in it because of the formidable process, Ben Bruce appeared on the scene for a dare. He single-handedly recalled the industry from its graveyard abode.Initially, it was believed he didn't have a dog's chance of making it. How could he succeed' The departed cinema had been swiftly replaced with home video. Television was going stronger, with local and foreign sitcoms and soaps irresistible menu to look forward to every night. How about the unsafe streets at night' It discouraged any thought of recalling the cinema from the dead. Finally, Nollywood began to bloom, with doomsday predictions that the cinema would never come back.Somehow, however, Ben Bruce wasn't overwhelmed by these real fears. Wielding the uncanny idea that if he could put together a home-like ambience complete with large screens and digital sound audio complexes (features which previous theatres didn't have) he'd resurrect the cinema, he trudged on and refused to listen to entreaties to desist from a perceived entrepreneurial misadventure.Now the cinema is back alive, with even a putative foe Nollywood, a strong partner. But it is waiting for a potentially more powerful consort, namely the government. Government can harness the infinite might of the cinema to enlighten and educate the masses for developing the society.As Ben Murray-Bruce marks his birthday on February 18, 2012, I salute him for every so often trying the untried on behalf of society, even if he is sometimes pooh-poohed!Happy birthday Ben Bruce!Ojewale is a Media Consultant in Ogun State
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