FROM MY SIDDON LOOK PERCH: FREE ADVICE (2) By Iyke Durumba With the emergence of Prof/Pst Yemi Osinbajo as Gen. Buharis running mate, a very effective check was put on Jonathanian allegations of religious bias in APC...so the game changed. Now, if President Jonathans supporters want to win more converts online and on-ground, theyd better start de-emphasizing the religious angle and start talking other more useful things. Conspiracy theories, some of which have the ring of truth around them, wont also fly in this election. The availability of nearly instant info via a myriad of sources online has made conspiracy theories less and less effective as a propaganda weapon. Jonathanians had better deploy the huge resources of state at their disposal to dig up REAL, TRUE facts about the General (and those around him) or just shut up and quit making a fool of themselves by slinging around unfounded and sometimes confounded theories. If there are videos, news articles or dossiers, show us the FACTS and quit making puerile insinuations. Also, the non-availability of vital documents like the KPMG audit report of the NNPC following the missing $20bn allegation will be a dampener to the efforts of Jonathanians to extricate the man from corruption. If una know where dat report dey, make una go find am o...or else, in the minds of the electorate, $20bn (or is it $10b or $12bn) may actually be missing! Another area Jonathans campaign team and his supporters need to work on is in disseminating news of projects done by his administration. Its obvious that a great deal has been done by between 2011 and 2015..piling and disseminating these achievements in a credible compendium (video, text, audio) shouldnt be too difficult for a party that has N21bn in its campaign kitty. Except of course, the N21bn is for private pockets...(Any surprise?) Lastly, Jonathan himself should start talking to Nigerians directly. Being media-shy and elusive to journalists simply creates a vacuum and since nature abhors vacuums, wrong images of your person is bound to grow in the minds of the electorate. When you dont seize media opportunities (even of 3-5 minutes) to sell yourself and grow your image positively in the media, you leave the opposition the free space to first insinuate, then impose a negative image of you on the minds of those who will vote for you. An adjunct to the need to be more in the public eye is the need to appear on presidential election debates. To the best of my knowlege, Jonathan dodged the 2011 debates but it will be a huge disaster for him to fail to appear in 2015. Its even difficult to understand why he should be running away from debating a candidate whose knowlege of issues is obviously very limited. Lastly and generally, its my opinion that Presidents Jonathans media team is the dullest and most unimaginative media team of any incumbent political candidate Ive seen or heard of in modern times. It just seems his PR people have become so sated and swollen with ill-booty that their brains have refused to be innovative in devising new ways of reaching and impressing the electorate with the virtues of their principal. Relying on a much-eroded factor of incumbency, these PR beatniks in the Presidency and his party, the PDP, have completely surrendered the media space to the rampaging APC propaganda machinery and have been relegated to the background to play catch-up and merely react to the oppositions numerous media victories. If President Jonathan wants to win this election, his media team must overhaul their culture of being lamely reactive to becoming aggressively proactive. Let me add, if President Jonathan loses this election, his media team of mediocres should be held squarely responsible.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 10:32:33 +0000
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