campaign for the re-election of President Goodluck
Jonathan last week, the President has been committing
one blunder after another thereby raising the
suspicion that he is unwittingly deepening his
popularity deficit.
To me, the first blunder is the appointment of a
former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode,
as the spokesperson far his campaign outfit. For the
President to have chosen such a controversial person
for such a role says a lot about the kind of campaign
he has in mind. If the President must do his friend
some favours, are there no other ways of doing so
rather than appointing him to such a sensitive
position?
The second related blunder is that the President seems
to have a faulty communications strategy. His recent
speeches have been less presidential, full of outbursts,
personal attacks, outright pettiness and other forms of
adversarial communication unbecoming of an
incumbent. Is it not odd that he attempted to quantify
and justify the amount of money that a former
Governor of the old Anambra State, Jim Nwobodo,
was alleged to have "stolen" before he was jailed by
Buhari in his time as a military Head of State? Besides,
the President should have no business, for instance,
with coming as low as to accusing his opponent of not
remembering his phone number. His reference to the
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta
and its leader, Henry Okah, was unnecessary and even
damaging to him. Many Nigerians are aware that he
had defended that same group publicly in the past and
so seeing him turn round to castigate it makes him
come across as unsteady and shifty. That is an
avoidable negative impression that will not help at this
time.
The third blunder is that he, like his APC counterpart,
Muhammadu Buhari, has yet to start an issue-based
campaign. This is a lost opportunity for an incumbent
that should potentially work to his advantage. The
President has not made clear and eloquent references
to his achievements in the last four years neither has
he told Nigerians what to expect in the future or how
long they will wait for the resources and efforts
invested to bear clear fruits. Instead, he has spent little
time so far on the key pillars of his transformation
agenda and the extent his administration has gone in
implementing them. The President made several
promises to Nigerians in 2011. What he ought to be
doing now is telling us how far he delivered on those
promises. That should be part of his key message to
every geopolitical zone. He could easily have
apologised on the areas where he has not delivered
much. We also expect that he should tell us if he is
having any challenges and how long it will take for
such challenges to be overcome.
In particular, what has he done with the power sector?
What has he done in the agricultural sector? How did
he manage the economy? How does he plan to seek
additional revenue to fund budgetary provisions and
diversify the economy amidst progressive oil price
slump? How many jobs has his government created in
the past four years and how does it plan to create
more? How many kilometres of roads has he
constructed? How did he fight or not fight corruption?
When will the East-West Road be completed? Why is
the Petroleum Industry Bill still stalled? What is his
foreign policy thrust and how did it fare in four years?
If he fails to do these as it is now the case, how can he
face us – the same people and begin to make fresh
promises? How does he expect anyone to believe him?
The fourth blunder discernible from the President's
campaign so far is the way he is handling the issue of
the insurgency in the North-East. That is one of the
zones that the President is allegedly most disliked and
one wonders why he is not doing much to remedy the
negative perception about him in the area. In the last
few days, there has been the reported killing of,
according to military authorities, 150 people, in Baga,
Borno State and about 40 persons in Geidam in Yobe
State. The President has yet to publicly commiserate
with the families of the victims of those attacks the
same way he did with the French government over the
killing of 17 persons in a terror attack in Paris last
week. The President should have even visited these
areas both to encourage the citizens that have been
under attacks for some years now and to motivate the
soldiers in the battlefield. How come that President
Jonathan has not and still does not see anything wrong
in that? Will the President scale up the battle against
the insurgents and is there a clear road map to end the
conflict? My question thus is whether the President
will eventually visit that zone to campaign for votes. I
will await what sort of speech he will deliver there or
the explanations he will offer for such level of palpable
dereliction of duty.
The Victim Support Fund established by the
government and the efforts made or not made to
support millions of the Internally Displaced Persons
currently in camps in some parts across the country is
another campaign issue yet untouched so far by the
PDP government. A place like Baga which is one of the
largest fish markets in West Africa has now been
deserted. The same with Geidam, one of the largest
cattle markets in Nigeria, where a whole market was
burnt down. These potential voters are right to look up
to their government for support.
Apparently, the President is under some pressure
because of the dwindling support base of his party.
But, his performance on the campaign trail is making
it look very obvious and laughable, always looking
visibly angry and even jittery, especially at the Lagos
leg. He is apparently fixated on what his opponent is
saying rather than offer a clear road map of where he
is coming from and going to as a leader. That is critical
for him to convince Nigerians that he has the capacity
to continue to lead us. His lieutenants need to come to
his rescue urgently. The inroads of the opposition
party are clearly unsettling the most powerful
Nigerian. He appears to be looking for any straw to
hold unto to get the sympathy of citizens. As an
incumbent President, Nigerians are expecting a less
adversarial and more issue-based communication
from Jonathan. That is not yet happening. What has he
done in the last four years? We need facts and figures
and not ambiguities. The President should be told that
the 2015 election will be a different one from the
2011. The kind of strategy he used to get sympathy
votes in 2011 will obviously not work this time round.
He and his team should try something else and quickly
too.
However, I wonder if the next 30 days will be enough
for the President and his party to review his strategy
and remedy his style before it is too late.
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