Fellow Nigerians, these are not the best of times for our dear
President, Muhammadu Buhari. And it must be much worse for his
media handlers. Let me state matter-of-factly, from the onset, that
President Buhari gets into regular trouble, indeed, too frequently,
because he has invested heavily in a media team but lacks a public
relations team. In Nigeria, most leaders fail to realise that being
a good journalist, Editor, Publisher, Broadcaster, and what have
you, does not make you a good or excellent public relations guru.
The other problem is I’m not sure the President is surrounded by
those bold or brave enough to look him straight in the eye to tell
him the honest truth. His earlier persona as a military ruler has
also not helped matters in this respect. The fear of a military
dictator is the beginning of wisdom, according to the view of an
average Nigerian.
I must confess that I have been a latter-day convert and ardent
fan of President Buhari. I signed up only after he decided to
contest the 2015 elections for a record fourth time. I took the
view that he was the best man for the job particularly because the
Jonathan administration was fumbling and not prone to correction. I
played my part in articulating the President’s attraction for me
and those like me who felt that he was what Nigeria required at the
time, a stop-gap in the mould of Mandela option. Without being
immodest I can say that I successfully played my own part in the
eventual victory of APC and the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket.
I first had a significant interaction with Buhari in 2011, when
he asked Dr Lanre Tejuoso to bring me to his house in Abuja and we
got on quite well. The camaraderie was palpable. And he disarmed me
with his candour and passion. Prior to the 2015 election, I met
Buhari in London at a flat in Mayfair, the day he spoke at Chatham
House. He sprang to his feet as soon as I walked in and appeared
happy to see me. We chatted briefly and took several pictures with
Rotimi Amaechi, Hadi Sirika, Festus Keyamo, Hadiza Bala Usman and
others. He was as effervescent and excited as everyone else at the
prospect of becoming Nigeria’s new leader. His optimism for the
country was infectious and I believed I had made a wise decision in
deciding to follow and publicly support him.
I vividly recollect my meeting with President Buhari shortly
after he assumed office in 2015. This was at his behest. I found
him very relaxed and jocular. We again got on well. Contrary to the
public misconception and rumours about his taciturnity, he was
witty, chatty and freely spoke his mind. He certainly did not
appear dictatorial or aloof. Many of those who saw our interaction
on television, as well as the pictures in different media, could
not believe how freely we had bonded. I was surprised when a few
Ministers asked what I did to make him feel so comfortable with me.
Even before I went in to see him, a few people had pleaded with me
to help talk to him frankly. I started getting the feeling that
they considered me a suicide bomber who should carry away the sins
of the earth. But the Buhari I met was not as difficult as he was
made out to be. Everyone says when you hold meetings with him, it
is a monologue, you are forced to do the talking while he does the
listening. And that you never know whether he has heard you or what
is on his mind. That was not the Buhari I met. He was receptive and
we exchanged ideas on the various issues of national and social
interest that we talked about.
It is one of those inexplicable ironies that the same man who
generated and galvanised so much love and passionate affection has
lost and squandered most of that uncommon goodwill. No one since
the June 12, 1993, election, which was clearly and undoubtedly won
by Chief MKO Abiola, has had such monumental, widely acclaimed and
fair victory as President Buhari did in 2015. The youths of Nigeria
were so much in love with him that they studiously ignored all his
shortcomings and embraced him warts and all. The same youths are so
angry today that I’m almost certain it would take some magic and
miracle to get them to reconnect with our President like they did
in 2015. There was nothing anyone could have said negatively to
Buhari that they would have believed at that time. As a matter of
fact, the youths said if Buhari presented NEPA bills as his school
certificate result, they would accept it as genuine and further,
that they were ready to march for Buhari all the way to Aso
Rock.
So what went wrong? It is difficult to point at just one thing.
It has been an amalgamation of conflicting issues and signals. The
first was the attitude exhibited early in the life of this
government that there was no real urgency and Buhari could take
forever to handpick his team. The government lost the much-needed
steam at that moment. And when the team was announced, it was déjà
vu, because there was no difference and no big deal about their
composition. Next was the witting or unwitting decision to start a
war of attrition within his own party. I warned against this very
quickly, but was dismissed as raising false alarm. The APC became a
house divided against itself. Till this day they couldn’t hold
regular meetings, they couldn’t make most of the necessary
political appointments, they couldn’t select their board of
trustees, they couldn’t even hold a convention to celebrate their
victory not to talk of one to elect a new national executive and so
on.
The Party’s highfalutin campaign promises soon became its
albatross. The grandiloquent manifesto had been packaged to entice
everyone like babies to lollipop but when the day of reckoning and
delivery came, the chocolate boxes were suddenly and strangely
empty. The schools feeding programs could not be achieved. The
social security and welfare packages of arranging stipends for the
unemployed youths reached a cul-de-sac because government could not
muster such resources. The President’s avowed fiscal policy target
of parity between the Naira and the US Dollar – One Naira to one US
Dollar proved to be a pipe dream that all discerning members of the
public knew it would be. Indeed, it was much worse as the Naira
slid to its lowest ever price against all currencies including
African ones.
Buhari’s biggest attraction was the belief that he would easily
wipe out, or at least significantly reduce, corruption in Nigeria.
Those who believed the hype saw him as the only saint in Nigeria,
but they forgot that sinners are probably the only ones capable of
catapulting the saint to power. He tried his best in fighting the
demons of Nigerian democracy, but they were much smarter than he
ever bargained for. Pronto, the demons lined up in a long queue and
migrated from PDP to APC where they are now comfortably ensconced
and protected. Several corruption allegations and scandalous
revelations involving members of the government or trusted aides
and associates have either been ignored or swept under the carpet.
Thus it has become difficult for the ruling party to stand on any
moral ground and sermonise or pontificate about fighting
corruption. For every finger pointed at others, four fingers
pointed back at them. The sacred cows, otherwise known as the
cabal, and other members of the Politburo have remained
mysteriously and monstrously powerful and untouchable.
The most nauseating to many people has been the blame game. This
has irritated so many people, including former Head of State and
President, Olusegun Obasanjo, who exploded and told Buhari
frontally to deliver on his promises instead of his regular
lamentations. He effectively said everyone knew the former
government did abominably badly and that is why it was sacked. The
blame game seemed to have backfired as Nigerians are bored sick of
hearing the same jejune tales over and over, instead of government
telling us the good news of their own kingdom, and juxtaposing
their own achievements against that of former President Goodluck
Jonathan. The government should have known that hungry people
hardly listen attentively to preaching and sooner than later would
request for the way forward. Using the past as an excuse can only
work up to a point. The people want action and not this litany of
woes.
The other problem, and this is grave, is that the President
hardly talks to Nigerians in Nigeria. And when he speaks, the words
are so scanty and not much can be grabbed from them. Our President
was critically ill and had to domicile himself abroad for several
months cumulatively, yet no one knows what was wrong till this day.
A public figure cannot afford to be too secretive in this manner.
It only fuels curiosity and promotes ugly rumours. Significantly,
the President who does not speak at home picks the wrong places and
occasions to talk abroad and attracts controversies and public
ridicule to himself and his country. The headlines have always been
for the wrong reasons rather than the right mileage for the country
and himself from the international media exposure and interest. On
those trips, we’ve expanded the lexicon with such phrases as “the
other room”; or as the latest gaffe goes “young people who want to
sit and want to be paid free money and free health…”
I have been inundated by calls since President Buhari made his
latest remarks in London in answer to a question at the end of his
keynote address at the Commonwealth Business Forum. To say most of
the comments have been quite bad is an understatement. To properly
understand I listened to the video and transcribed it myself,
although I also had access to my dear brother, the Special Adviser
Media to the President, Femi Adesina’s transcription. Below is my
humble effort:
“We have ah, a very young population. Our population is
estimated conservatively to be ah, a hundred and eighty million.
Ah, this is a conservative one. More than 60 per cent of the
population is below the age of (sic) thirty. Ah, a lot of them
haven’t been to school. They are claiming ah, ah, you know, that
Nigeria has been an oil producing country, therefore ah, they
should sit and do nothing and get housing, healthcare, ah,
education free.”
The furore and fury the latest controversy has generated on
social media is almost unprecedented. It is like touching the tiger
by the tail. A seemingly harmless statement credited to President
Buhari has ignited a huge conflagration everywhere. I felt bad for
Femi Adesina as he struggled to defend, explain and transliterate
what the President said or meant to say to an unwilling and
unyielding audience. It has become a very heavy cross he must carry
every time his boss speaks these days and it cannot be easy. It is
true the President did not use the word lazy or say that all
Nigerian youths sit at home and do nothing. It is also not true
that he used the word half-educated. However, what he said about
the youths suggests something worse, although that is clearly not
what was meant. “a lot of them did not go to school”, translates to
a lot of them are uneducated which is even worse than
half-educated. One may pardon the President because empirically
this is true of the educationally disadvantaged States with which
he is very familiar, but it is blatantly false about the south
where education is much advanced. Similarly, to say somebody sits
down and does nothing and wants to claim freebies is to say that
person is irresponsible. In my view, this is much worse than
laziness. Factor in the fact that free health, free education and
affordable housing for all, were the campaign slogans of the APC
and no one begged for it. So you can see a public relations
disaster right before your very eyes.
President Buhari indeed has become a public relations nightmare.
He is seriously in need of experts and coaches in public speaking
and etiquette, especially now that he has decided to challenge fate
by aspiring for a second term in office. If the plan is to throw in
combatants, trolls and internet warriors to bully his opponents
into submission, it would not fly. He needs all the gentility in
the world to cajole, coax and convince Nigerians that he means
well; that he knows what he is doing; that he is tackling the
difficult challenges; that he is not a religious bigot or ethnic
supremacist or jingoist; that he would reduce the menace of, if not
wipe out, Boko Haram; that he would destroy the rampaging invaders
called herdsmen wherever they are coming from; that he would revamp
and improve the economy; that he would create opportunities for all
Nigerians including jobs for our restive youths; and above all that
he will keep all the brightest people closer to him …
I pray it is not too late…
Fellow Nigerians, these are not the best of times for our dear
President, Muhammadu Buhari. And it must be much worse for his
media handlers. Let me state matter-of-factly, from the onset, that
President Buhari gets into regular trouble, indeed, too frequently,
because he has invested heavily in a media team but lacks a public
relations team. In Nigeria, most leaders fail to realise that being
a good journalist, Editor, Publisher, Broadcaster, and what have
you, does not make you a good or excellent public relations guru.
The other problem is I’m not sure the President is surrounded by
those bold or brave enough to look him straight in the eye to tell
him the honest truth. His earlier persona as a military ruler has
also not helped matters in this respect. The fear of a military
dictator is the beginning of wisdom, according to the view of an
average Nigerian.
I must confess that I have been a latter-day convert and ardent
fan of President Buhari. I signed up only after he decided to
contest the 2015 elections for a record fourth time. I took the
view that he was the best man for the job particularly because the
Jonathan administration was fumbling and not prone to correction. I
played my part in articulating the President’s attraction for me
and those like me who felt that he was what Nigeria required at the
time, a stop-gap in the mould of Mandela option. Without being
immodest I can say that I successfully played my own part in the
eventual victory of APC and the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket.
I first had a significant interaction with Buhari in 2011, when
he asked Dr Lanre Tejuoso to bring me to his house in Abuja and we
got on quite well. The camaraderie was palpable. And he disarmed me
with his candour and passion. Prior to the 2015 election, I met
Buhari in London at a flat in Mayfair, the day he spoke at Chatham
House. He sprang to his feet as soon as I walked in and appeared
happy to see me. We chatted briefly and took several pictures with
Rotimi Amaechi, Hadi Sirika, Festus Keyamo, Hadiza Bala Usman and
others. He was as effervescent and excited as everyone else at the
prospect of becoming Nigeria’s new leader. His optimism for the
country was infectious and I believed I had made a wise decision in
deciding to follow and publicly support him.
I vividly recollect my meeting with President Buhari shortly
after he assumed office in 2015. This was at his behest. I found
him very relaxed and jocular. We again got on well. Contrary to the
public misconception and rumours about his taciturnity, he was
witty, chatty and freely spoke his mind. He certainly did not
appear dictatorial or aloof. Many of those who saw our interaction
on television, as well as the pictures in different media, could
not believe how freely we had bonded. I was surprised when a few
Ministers asked what I did to make him feel so comfortable with me.
Even before I went in to see him, a few people had pleaded with me
to help talk to him frankly. I started getting the feeling that
they considered me a suicide bomber who should carry away the sins
of the earth. But the Buhari I met was not as difficult as he was
made out to be. Everyone says when you hold meetings with him, it
is a monologue, you are forced to do the talking while he does the
listening. And that you never know whether he has heard you or what
is on his mind. That was not the Buhari I met. He was receptive and
we exchanged ideas on the various issues of national and social
interest that we talked about.
It is one of those inexplicable ironies that the same man who
generated and galvanised so much love and passionate affection has
lost and squandered most of that uncommon goodwill. No one since
the June 12, 1993, election, which was clearly and undoubtedly won
by Chief MKO Abiola, has had such monumental, widely acclaimed and
fair victory as President Buhari did in 2015. The youths of Nigeria
were so much in love with him that they studiously ignored all his
shortcomings and embraced him warts and all. The same youths are so
angry today that I’m almost certain it would take some magic and
miracle to get them to reconnect with our President like they did
in 2015. There was nothing anyone could have said negatively to
Buhari that they would have believed at that time. As a matter of
fact, the youths said if Buhari presented NEPA bills as his school
certificate result, they would accept it as genuine and further,
that they were ready to march for Buhari all the way to Aso
Rock.
So what went wrong? It is difficult to point at just one thing.
It has been an amalgamation of conflicting issues and signals. The
first was the attitude exhibited early in the life of this
government that there was no real urgency and Buhari could take
forever to handpick his team. The government lost the much-needed
steam at that moment. And when the team was announced, it was déjà
vu, because there was no difference and no big deal about their
composition. Next was the witting or unwitting decision to start a
war of attrition within his own party. I warned against this very
quickly, but was dismissed as raising false alarm. The APC became a
house divided against itself. Till this day they couldn’t hold
regular meetings, they couldn’t make most of the necessary
political appointments, they couldn’t select their board of
trustees, they couldn’t even hold a convention to celebrate their
victory not to talk of one to elect a new national executive and so
on.
The Party’s highfalutin campaign promises soon became its
albatross. The grandiloquent manifesto had been packaged to entice
everyone like babies to lollipop but when the day of reckoning and
delivery came, the chocolate boxes were suddenly and strangely
empty. The schools feeding programs could not be achieved. The
social security and welfare packages of arranging stipends for the
unemployed youths reached a cul-de-sac because government could not
muster such resources. The President’s avowed fiscal policy target
of parity between the Naira and the US Dollar – One Naira to one US
Dollar proved to be a pipe dream that all discerning members of the
public knew it would be. Indeed, it was much worse as the Naira
slid to its lowest ever price against all currencies including
African ones.
Buhari’s biggest attraction was the belief that he would easily
wipe out, or at least significantly reduce, corruption in Nigeria.
Those who believed the hype saw him as the only saint in Nigeria,
but they forgot that sinners are probably the only ones capable of
catapulting the saint to power. He tried his best in fighting the
demons of Nigerian democracy, but they were much smarter than he
ever bargained for. Pronto, the demons lined up in a long queue and
migrated from PDP to APC where they are now comfortably ensconced
and protected. Several corruption allegations and scandalous
revelations involving members of the government or trusted aides
and associates have either been ignored or swept under the carpet.
Thus it has become difficult for the ruling party to stand on any
moral ground and sermonise or pontificate about fighting
corruption. For every finger pointed at others, four fingers
pointed back at them. The sacred cows, otherwise known as the
cabal, and other members of the Politburo have remained
mysteriously and monstrously powerful and untouchable.
The most nauseating to many people has been the blame game. This
has irritated so many people, including former Head of State and
President, Olusegun Obasanjo, who exploded and told Buhari
frontally to deliver on his promises instead of his regular
lamentations. He effectively said everyone knew the former
government did abominably badly and that is why it was sacked. The
blame game seemed to have backfired as Nigerians are bored sick of
hearing the same jejune tales over and over, instead of government
telling us the good news of their own kingdom, and juxtaposing
their own achievements against that of former President Goodluck
Jonathan. The government should have known that hungry people
hardly listen attentively to preaching and sooner than later would
request for the way forward. Using the past as an excuse can only
work up to a point. The people want action and not this litany of
woes.
The other problem, and this is grave, is that the President
hardly talks to Nigerians in Nigeria. And when he speaks, the words
are so scanty and not much can be grabbed from them. Our President
was critically ill and had to domicile himself abroad for several
months cumulatively, yet no one knows what was wrong till this day.
A public figure cannot afford to be too secretive in this manner.
It only fuels curiosity and promotes ugly rumours. Significantly,
the President who does not speak at home picks the wrong places and
occasions to talk abroad and attracts controversies and public
ridicule to himself and his country. The headlines have always been
for the wrong reasons rather than the right mileage for the country
and himself from the international media exposure and interest. On
those trips, we’ve expanded the lexicon with such phrases as “the
other room”; or as the latest gaffe goes “young people who want to
sit and want to be paid free money and free health…”
I have been inundated by calls since President Buhari made his
latest remarks in London in answer to a question at the end of his
keynote address at the Commonwealth Business Forum. To say most of
the comments have been quite bad is an understatement. To properly
understand I listened to the video and transcribed it myself,
although I also had access to my dear brother, the Special Adviser
Media to the President, Femi Adesina’s transcription. Below is my
humble effort:
“We have ah, a very young population. Our population is
estimated conservatively to be ah, a hundred and eighty million.
Ah, this is a conservative one. More than 60 per cent of the
population is below the age of (sic) thirty. Ah, a lot of them
haven’t been to school. They are claiming ah, ah, you know, that
Nigeria has been an oil producing country, therefore ah, they
should sit and do nothing and get housing, healthcare, ah,
education free.”
The furore and fury the latest controversy has generated on
social media is almost unprecedented. It is like touching the tiger
by the tail. A seemingly harmless statement credited to President
Buhari has ignited a huge conflagration everywhere. I felt bad for
Femi Adesina as he struggled to defend, explain and transliterate
what the President said or meant to say to an unwilling and
unyielding audience. It has become a very heavy cross he must carry
every time his boss speaks these days and it cannot be easy. It is
true the President did not use the word lazy or say that all
Nigerian youths sit at home and do nothing. It is also not true
that he used the word half-educated. However, what he said about
the youths suggests something worse, although that is clearly not
what was meant. “a lot of them did not go to school”, translates to
a lot of them are uneducated which is even worse than
half-educated. One may pardon the President because empirically
this is true of the educationally disadvantaged States with which
he is very familiar, but it is blatantly false about the south
where education is much advanced. Similarly, to say somebody sits
down and does nothing and wants to claim freebies is to say that
person is irresponsible. In my view, this is much worse than
laziness. Factor in the fact that free health, free education and
affordable housing for all, were the campaign slogans of the APC
and no one begged for it. So you can see a public relations
disaster right before your very eyes.
President Buhari indeed has become a public relations nightmare.
He is seriously in need of experts and coaches in public speaking
and etiquette, especially now that he has decided to challenge fate
by aspiring for a second term in office. If the plan is to throw in
combatants, trolls and internet warriors to bully his opponents
into submission, it would not fly. He needs all the gentility in
the world to cajole, coax and convince Nigerians that he means
well; that he knows what he is doing; that he is tackling the
difficult challenges; that he is not a religious bigot or ethnic
supremacist or jingoist; that he would reduce the menace of, if not
wipe out, Boko Haram; that he would destroy the rampaging invaders
called herdsmen wherever they are coming from; that he would revamp
and improve the economy; that he would create opportunities for all
Nigerians including jobs for our restive youths; and above all that
he will keep all the brightest people closer to him …
I pray it is not too late…
Read more https://nairalaw.com/president-buhari-as-a-public-relations-nightmare-by-dele-momodu/