FROM MY SIDDON LOOK PERCH: FREE ADVICE (1) By Iyke Durumba If only Gen. Buhari and his supporters can start doing the real job of winning votes and quit mundane quarrelsomeness, bitter-minded threats to life and irrational political swordmanship, the chances of their candidate may really look up. Ive avowed several times that Im NOT likely to vote in the Presidential polls so with this free advice, i come in peace as a mere watcher. Anyone who knows how to feel the political pulse will tell you that never before in the history of this country has an incumbent come this close to being voted out. Never before has the clamour for change been so loud, so vociferous and so widespread. What that means is that it will take just a little more work to tip the scales in the Generals favour. But the greatest barrier to this historical change is Buharis supporters, both online and on-ground! Just like Jonathans biggest albatross in the campaigns is his rather dim and unimaginative media team, Buharis undoing may just be his wild, uncouth and mostly barely literate followers who feel inexplicably holier-than-thou (for what, you cant imagine), insufferably arrogant and feel coercion instead of persuasion is the best method of politicking. But as Buharis supporters up their ante of coercion and their party apparitchik step up their inflammatory statements, political watchers are wondering, considering what happened after the 2011 elections, do these people have a Plan B or what? By my estimation there are many more undecided voters than those dedicated to either candidate. But I want to tell Buharistas that you CANNOT use by force to convince anyone! Neither can you use loud and often foul-mouthed obfuscations to confuse people from dogged questioning of relevant details of the Generals candidacy. You need to back down on that message of if its not us then everything will scatter that youre passing on. It will gain you nothing and set the undecideds against you. Deploying rude, coercive and absolutist language in campaigning for a candidate whose track record of totalitarianism still rankles, is bound to produce negative results. Voters will simply clam up and reject you, your message and your candidate. Sell your candidates integrity but most importantly, see his programs and plans. If for instance he has said he will abolish the office of the first lady, why cant we also have his clear-cut ideas on what he will do about the privatization of PHCN? If he has said he will fight corruption, why cant you tell us the mechanism or methodology he will deploy so that well know how workable it is? See what I mean? Sell Buharis plans in such a way that voters will be able to key into it and imagine how much better their lives will be with his Presidency. For a man who never previously thought Twitter to be where human beings congregate and probably didnt know anything about it, telling us the number of Twitter followers he has garnered in a few days is pure childish nonsense. So is showing us pictures of Buhari holding an e-tablet and gazing wondrously at it as an earthling will gaze at a UFO. Sell your candidates programs! Sell his ability to implement those programs! And sell the difference those programs will make in the lives of Nigerians!
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 11:59:51 +0000
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