Recently, I read the memoirs of Lawrence Ari Fleischer. Fleischer was a former White House Press Secretary for a former United States President, George W. Bush, from January 2001 to July 2003. In his memoirs entitled, “Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House”, Fleischer described his time on the job as the press secretary of the Republican president in one of the most difficult periods of American history.
Fleischer’s book will be a useful resource for those who have the job of speaking on behalf of political leaders at all levels. The simple advice from Fleischer is that a spokesperson cannot afford to be combative, condescending and haughty. According to him, the job of an image maker is not to create enemies and unnecessary resentment for the principal because the president has enough enemies already.
In the instructive memoirs, Fleischer has narrated a period every American would never forget for generations to come. The country had been at the centre of radical Islamists’ hate. Al Qaeda had become a threat to America’s assets both at home and abroad. The hatred boiled over on September 11, 2001 when the Twin Towers were hit by jets flown by Al Qaeda suicide bombers.
It was during this difficult moment when Americans sought protection from the most powerful president in the world; a period when both the citizens and the media demanded answers as to why the homeland had become vulnerable to the unprecedented terror attacks; it was a time Fleischer as press secretary had to face Americans and media in daily briefings. Fleischer said that was the most testing period to be a press secretary.
He wrote about the mornings when he had to face barrage of questions from the White House press corps in the Briefing Room to assure the nation that the Bush administration was on top of the situation. Fleischer also described tense moments when the press corps pushed him to the limits during question and answer sessions. He said in those moments, a press secretary cannot afford to blow a fuse. It is in those moments that being thick-skinned becomes a valuable asset.
In those uncertain days when Americans felt vulnerable, the Bush media team’s response to questions arising from the terror attacks assured Americans that the President ‘’got their backs.” Fleischer narrated how he would go through press transcripts with an emotionally broken president and kept a huge flow of information and not losing his nerves.
I have drawn this example as a parallel considering criticisms arising from the utterances of Femi Adeshina in his role as President Muhammadu Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity. Adesina had drawn the ire of critics due to his responses to the President’s stewardship in several platforms. In a recent interview with Saturday PUNCH, Adesina was thought to have been too belligerent. He appeared to be too much on the defensive -sometimes irritated. The tone of his voice seemed to convey an irritability that bordered on arrogance. He also seemed fractious by questions about the President’s performance. “It is mendacious to say that in the last one year, what Nigerians have been experiencing is suffering. It is not true. That can only be a private opinion. Whoever holds that opinion has a right to it but to say that all Nigerians have experienced in the last one year is suffering is not true.” It beats the imagination how Adesina could have bungled an opening question that required tact and diplomacy – even compassion. But the same reaction ran through the entire interview.
The unspoken message was: “Are you people blind? Can’t you see that the President is working his heart out for your sake?” Yet, by assuming a haughty disposition that Nigerians ought to know, Adesina broke a lack of basics of his job which Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution refers to as the art of political communication -which requires diplomacy, tact and empathy. In the interview, Adesina did not communicate, he talked down on Nigerians. But that was not the first time he had been criticised for his condescension and irritability.
On a television interview the other day, the media adviser had incurred the wrath of Nigerians for suggesting to them that they should hold vandals responsible for the energy crisis. In a bid to stave off blame from the government, he had said: “If you are crying that you are in darkness, go and fight vandals.” Now, the question is, why does Adesina have a predilection to be condescending?
Why do Nigerians, according to him, have to be grateful for having a Buhari as President? Isn’t that the reason we elected the President because they trusted him to do the job? The gratitude Nigerians paid to Buhari was voting out the Jonathan administration known for its corruption?
The job of a spokesperson is to analyse and break down policies in simple terms so ordinary Nigerians will take ownership of them. I have been following Adesina since he assumed office. He seems to think all critics of President Buhari are “Wailing wailers.” He even gets into social media war often. I consider that as petty. A spokesman should not be duelling in the trenches with critics. His should focus on the big picture. Adesina can do much better. He has a tough job of communicating the President’s policies to Nigerians.
Right now, he is failing in that duty. When he was appointed in May 2015, Nigerians had been hopeful that his boyish charm and calm, gentlemanly disposition which contrast with the image of a tough, unsmiling and taciturn President Buhari would be useful in communicating the administration’s policies to Nigerians. But his interactions so far are at variance with what Hess wrote as the qualities of a good media adviser. According to Hess, “It would be useful if your (media adviser) had great briefing skills: an ability to explain your policies with brevity and accuracy, to deflect difficult questions without rancour, and to cut tension with good humour or a quip. It would also be useful if reporters considered your press secretary to be a fun sort of person-if only because they will have to spend so much time together and because nothing is gained by a hostile workplace.”
PUNCH
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