April 11, 2022 will go down in Nigerian history for a number of reasons. One of those reasons received life in the early hours of that Monday morning.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo SAN formally declared his intention to contest for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under the flag of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
This didn’t come as a total shock to many. The rumor mill had been active with information about this move and the camps pitted against his intended move had been hard at work preparing for the eventuality …in the event other booby traps they had thrown his way failed to deter him from that course of action.
The 24 hours that followed his declaration was interesting to study. It almost took the form of a circus and it quickly became apparent that a pre-planned smear campaign had been activated to follow on the heels of the initial traps set to deter him from declaring.
If we are not careful, if we are not vigilant, the antics of professional political campaign strategists will take our collective eyes off the most important ball we should be watching at the moment: identifying the most competent candidate to lead Nigeria forward.
It is certain that the Vice President’s camp were also aware that the declaration was going to stir up a storm so it is best hoped that they also prepared well in advance for how to navigate the turbulent weeks ahead. It is not an enviable position he finds himself. To be at once the target of forces within your own party, and in fact forces that form a part of your support base, and at the same time, the target of forces from the opposition parties is an interesting place to find oneself politically.
In this first part of this commentary, I will touch briefly on a few areas of interest (and concern).
A quick read of some of the most recent (obviously sponsored) opinions in traditional and new media reveals a few of the strategies already being deployed against the VP.
Sadly, those engaged to execute this hatchet job (and those amplifying innocently because the narratives strike some sentimental chord) are fellow Nigerians. Some of them are safely ensconced ‘in the abroad’, but Nigerians all the same. A couple of them are well-known besserwisser academics that cloak narrow-minded dogmatism in highfalutin verbiage.
Now what have I observed so far?
The most elevated strategy being deployed is focused on diminishing the VPs 'circle'. Reducing an opponent's circle is a popular strategy employed in different forms of campaigns. Sometimes, it works; other times, neh...
Messaging being employed to drive this strategy so far has focused mainly on casting him as:
(1) A denominational bigot. This targets the religious paranoid (which happen to be a lot of Nigerians) and playing on the age-old inter-religious fears that is the bane of most of Nigeria’s woes. It also aims to attack his Christian support base by alienating him from other denominations)
(2) Disloyal. This targets party members mostly with the aim of widening the rift between the VP’s loyalists and others. It also hopes somehow to extend this sentiment to other Nigerians.
(3) Intellectually incompetent. This targets the public that view the Vice President as the most cerebral of the front runners.
When a strategy is built on pulling the other down and not around presenting your own case, it is easy to see that the individual being targeted is presently occupying a much stronger position. This is why the opponents need to first weaken him to stand any chance.
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The worrying part of their messaging are simple to detect and should concern Nigerians.
When you chose to bring religion front and centre into this present conversation, while being a proponent for one of the two leading Muslim front runners in the ruling party and the main opposition, you neglect the chance that the heightened attention to religion will bring in new questions such as the propriety of having a Muslim candidate take over from a Muslim candidate who has just completed an 8 year tenure. In a religiously charged country like Nigeria, an in an atmosphere which your strategy and messaging has heightened the religious tensions, this approach is certainly going to be counter-productive.
Secondly, to see supposedly enlightened and progressive Nigerians jumping on a different train in the conversation about the influence of godfathers in Nigerian politics shows the fallacy in the positions many adopt in such debates.
The same people who were excited by the actions in Kwara and Edo in recent elections (and a lot of others before them) when supposed godfathers were dis-owned and described them as progress are today insinuating that the decision of a full grown, competent Nigerian to contest an office is an affront to the ‘finger that fed him’. Simply put, merit and competence, take the back seat. The godfather is supreme.
Next, we started reading articles that sought to analyse the form and content of the declaration speech by ‘communication experts’ whose attempt to fault these aspects were drawn chiefly from their own opinions and self-effacing judgments. It is instructive that none of these people have spared any effort to gain access to the declaration speeches of any other over thirty other aspirants before now, let alone invest time and energy to analyse them …event to the point of determining the appropriateness of background colors! Somehow, the conclusions reached strove to show a connection between the supposed poor choices and the quality of the Vice President’s intellectual capacity.
Others sought to identify and attack points he raised that spoke to his current leadership experience and how that will be useful for the task of a president. Rather than recognize that these showed that of the front runners, here was one individual with the closest connection to and experience of Nigeria’s current situation, the messaging being driven goes totally off tangent.
But it is important that we keep our eyes on the ball.
It was a similar strategy that cost the Goodluck Jonathan campaign dearly in 2015. When you dedicate a disproportionate amount of your time and energy to keeping your opponent’s name in the media, while doing little or nothing to retain the same or more media attention, you adopt a self-defeating strategy. For every piece of content you spend time and money to create and disseminate that focuses on your opponent, you give your opponent an anchor in the mind of the public around which they hinge their next response.
Occupying the office of the President should not be seen as a final dissertation to be submitted that testifies to how well we have performed as political gladiators (as it seems to be to some). Contributions to the Nigerian project can (and has) come in various way from thousands of individuals and our ship is sailing – albeit slowly – today thanks to all those efforts.
Nigeria is in dire need of purposeful, cerebral and dynamic leadership. Nigeria deserves a break. If the choice is to be made, those managing strategy and communication for some of the camps need to moves away from the current strategy (which has failed before) and focus on defining the path to the hearts and minds of Nigerians for their candidates. They have an important role to play in articulating the visions and direction of their principals and presenting it to Nigerians in ways that will foster healthy engagement and insight-driven decision making.