Buhari's Image Control System
It will be very difficult for anyone to turn blind eyes to defensive template of our President's image makers. In fact, with the threshold they are going we might end up having a book on their incongruous stands on national discourse.
Image makers are meant to present their principals which could be individuals or organisations in manners that will make their audience keep abreast with situation of things. They are also to x-ray any perceived ambiguity in public domain on behalf of their principals as the need arises.
But the two aides handling this portfolio for Buhari are becoming insensitive to their roles. They have been feeding us with cosmetic and contradictory communiqués that made many to be saying they are malevolent to integrity of Buhari. Right from their day one assignment, they have remained controversial.
Just to cite few instances;
-'Buhari and his Vice have fulfilled one of their campaign promises by declaring their assets publicly today...' Garba Sheu. This took effort of many well meaning Nigerians to correct him that there is a wide gap between asset declaration to Code of Conduct Bureau and public. Instead of Garba Sheu and his co-travellers to admit being err, it was twisted that it will be after verification by CCB they will make it public.
- Buhari's take on limit of his age to his expected performance was
interpreted by Femi Adesina that old wine is better than new wine. May
be Femi was in haste to forget that ageing of wine only increases alcohol level that derail man from normalcy.
- Appointment of Amina Zakari as INEC boss that was tagged as nepotism by opposition but it was debunked by these aides and their
co-travellers. If not Yankassi that later gave us the true version we would have been living with theirs.
-It took Femi Adesina 4days after Buhari arrived from USA to feed us his doctored version of the visit. While Garba Sheu did after weeks.
-The last straw that broke the horse's back was the recent Femi Adesina's take on asset declaration. He beautifully goofed by claiming his boss did not make such promise and further separated Buhari from APC. We hope Femi will not wake up one day to tell us that APC manifesto is different from Buhari.
Without mincing words, these few instances clearly indicated that these
two aides are working in a parallel mode. If Garba earlier said it was a promise and Femi saying the contrary, then we need to ask if they
are serving different boss.
It is on this note we are calling on Femi and Garba to go back to their drawing boards and harmonise their points before it get to public domain.
Secondly, Nigerians are not gullible to the point that they could not understand English Language, so interpreting Buhari's statement will
continue to do more harm than good.
Lastly, the two spokesmen should beware of how volatile the current
political landscape is and not everyone will succumb into their antics of half truths.
God help Nigeria.
"The political process does not end on election day. Young people need
to stay involved in the process by continuing to pay attention to the
conversation and holding their leaders accountable for decisions they
make.". Patrick Murphy
Ifedayo Obi
Good Governance Advocates