For the sake of emphasis, it is apropos to recall that before Obama’s emergence, it was thought impossible for a black man to become president, hence ‘Yes We Can’ became a sort of magic wand designed to lift Obama from a first term senator in Chicago into the hallowed Oval Office of the president located at No 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC. Against the foregoing backdrop, ‘Yes We Can’ is obviously a distillation of Obama’s audacity of hope to become president in a land where his forebears were slaves a little over 100 years ago.
Another veritable reference point is the current president of the USA, Donald Trump who has also toed a similar path of enjoying the benefits of a slogan/mantra bolstered by an existential issue-ultra nationalism. Riding on the prevailing global anti-globalisation sentiments as reflected by the British people voting to exit the European Union now referred to as Brexit, Trump stoked the fire of ethnicity in the USA by adopting the ‘America First’ slogan.
By so doing, the toxic undercurrents of discontent in rural America against foreigners came alive with Trumps ‘America First’ agenda. Ultimately, Trump became the messiah being looked up to, mainly by folks in rural America calling for walls to be built around the USA borders to keep away immigrants; especially their South American brothers who they are accusing of stealing their jobs and Africans who Trump alleged are from ‘shithole’ countries.
In less than two years ‘America First’ slogan has been so powerful to the extent that today, we are all witnesses to the xenophobic sentiments that have become very dangerously pervasive in the USA. This is evidenced by the rise of the obnoxious Ku Klux Klan, KKK which is a throwback to the darkest days of racism and segregation , and reflected by other ethnic supremacist groups now fanning the embers of racism in the USA, hitherto, known as the land of the free where every citizen of the world went freely to chase the so called American dream.
Another angle to the Trump phenomenon is that as a self-made multi Billionaire, most American voters elected their current president with the hope that he would deploy his wealth building skills towards turning around American economy.
Remarkably, the PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar is like Trump, a multi billionaire who literarily turned straw into gold by pulling himself up by his bootstraps after being orphaned at infancy. However, not much has been done to push that Unique Selling Point, USP, as strength for the PDP presidential candidate. Perhaps, that’s because the opposition has tried to damage his reputation by tarring him with the brush of corruption. In my considered opinion, with no evidence of corruption or conviction in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world against Atiku Abubakar, his accomplishments as an astute wealth creator which are evident by the business empire and institutions that he has founded or Co founded, should be projected.
Clearly, it is through similar self-promotion, that Donald Trump, whose optical scope does not go beyond the USA, became the president of the most powerful country on earth.
So by and large, what the trend of slogans/mantras and symbols analysed above indicate is that, it is basically the candidates for election into public offices who are smart enough to key into the prevailing pressing issue of concern to the electorate at that particular point in time, and use it as rallying force or battle cry, that emerge victorious at the polls.
In the light of the foregoing, what is the malaise afflicting a broad spectrum of Nigerians today that would be potent enough to be used as a rallying force to get the electorate to vote out the current government in power? Is it the alarming incidents of insecurity of lives and property especially in the north east; the scandalous rate of poverty ravaging the masses nationwide, or the lack of credible economic plan/strategy to lead Nigeria into prosperity from the current sorry state of the economy and the chord of disunity that has been sown in the course of campaign for 2015 elections and perpetuated by the 97/5% rhetoric by then president-in-waiting, Muhammadu Buhari, post-election?
In 2015, then opposition party, APC, now the ruling party orchestrated the alarming rate of corruption in the country which it promised to eradicate as a battle cry and Nigerians listened to what sounded like a clarion call. And that’s largely because candidate Buhari, a man who had become a cult figure or mascot for uprightness and integrity was the person seeking to replace President Goodluck Jonathan, then incumbent President, who had been tagged with corruption toga.
Given the perfect hatred that Nigerians had for corruption as they generally believed that politicians with sticky fingers and fraudulent public servants are responsible for their plight, the CHANGE mantra that the APC adopted as its slogan was most apt and auspicious.
One thing that can be gleaned from the details in my cataloguing of the positive effects of use of slogans/ sloganeering and symbolism in politics is that it is a very efficacious tool. So the message that l’m striving to convey is how deeply, effectively and far-reaching a slogan based on philosophy has gone in changing the political atmosphere in the USA as evidenced by the good fortune of Barack Obama and Donald Trump who became presidents of the USA on account of correct messaging .
Contrary to the situation in the USA, and unlike during 2015 elections, slogans/sloganeering and symbolism in Nigeria have not had similar disruptive effect on who becomes the president of Nigeria in the manner that it influenced the emergence of Barack Obama and Donald Trump as no the #1 citizens of the USA and occupants of the White House back-to-back as 44th and 45th presidents.
And the reason is simple: Most slogans by Nigerian politicians have no underlying philosophical underpinnings. Put succinctly, they are base and banal.
Apart from the change mantra used by APC in 2015 to ride into Aso Rock villa, no impactful and catchy slogan has been couched by the current political parties in the current political dispensation.
Consider the current APC slogan of ‘Next Level’ which has been derided and parodied by most Nigerians mostly for its meaninglessness. Is it ‘Next level’ to more loss of lives to religious insurgents, nepotism or visionless leadership owing to prioritising anti-corruption over and above growing the economy? The slogan is even made worse by the fact that it is being alleged that it is a product of plagiarism.
Against the back drop of the scenario described above, can APC’s 2019 campaign slogan ‘Next Level’ be compared to their CHANGE mantra in 2015? Judge for yourself!
By the same token, can ATICULATED coined from the People Democratic Party, PDP 2019 presidential Candidate’s first name, Atiku convey the determination of the PDP and its candidate to rescue Nigeria from economic decay and strangulation leveraging Atiku’s economic management wizardry which seems to be the mission? With all sense of humility, I would argue that it does not.
At the state level, I have heard of Okowability derived from the surname of the current governor of delta state, Ifeanyi Okowa. l’m aware that the Governor of my state has in his first tenure been focused on infrastructure development as reflected by the significant number of infrastructural facilities such as roads that have been constructed or reconstructed under his watch. So why can’t it be emphasized that Okowa is a ROAD MASTER?
I have heard the governor (currently basking in the deserved glory of being an astute leader after he conducted the most rankle free and acceptable presidential primary elections in our country) being hailed as a Road Master, but it is more mute than OKOWABILITY which sounds sharp, but blurred in messaging.
Given that under Okowa’s watch Asaba airport hitherto suspended by FAAN has been brought back into service as an international airport, and he has also completed and commissioned Asaba township stadium, which recently hosted African Athletics federation tournament, coupled with the robust township road networks now a common site in most Delta state towns, the proper branding for Okowa should’ve been MR INFRASTRUCTURE.
But the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who is making waves in that respect has beaten him to that title, so ROAD MASTER which reinforces Okowa’s development policy initiative tagged SMART AGENDA which encapsulates his development plan for deltans, would suffice. I’m convinced that if you ask Okowas’s burgeoning number of supporters to choose between ROAD MASTER and Okowability, they would opt for the former because it is what’s endearing him to the electorate.
Finally, we are all witnesses to the impactful Orange Alternative/Revolution which was an anti-communist underground movement in Poland in the 1980s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and which was reincarnated in Ukraine after the disputed presidential election in 2004.
Another effective use of symbolism in politics is as recent as a couple of weeks ago in France during the Yellow Vests protests which compelled president Emmanuel Macron to roll back some of the policies that sparked the protest . The instances referenced above are evidence that when symbols and slogans are applied dexterously they can be efficacious processes of generating mass movement for or against a cause or causes. Such initiatives have been largely successful because they were very well thought through and executed in the climes cited.
Obviously, a smart slogan or symbol can make all the difference, be it in marketing a product or pushing a candidate for political office contest or protesting against a policy of govt.
Although the February 16,2019 general elections D-Day in Nigeria is now looming large, it is never too late for the recalibration of campaign messages by politicians and their platforms via couching of their vision and mission in laser precision slogans and symbols with a view to etching their messages into the minds of the members of their constituents in order to win their hearts and minds and snatch victory against all odds like presidents Obama and Trump did in the USA in 2008 and 2016 respectively .
Onyibe, a development Strategist, alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts university, Massachusetts, USA and a former Commissioner in Delta State government, wrote in from Agbor, Delta state.
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