Hello Jimi…this is a piece i wrote in 2011 while sourjourning in Abuja during the Goodluck Sambo campaign period. i guess for many of us…what we are seeing today in terms of the quality of governance was glaring from day 1, but we all turned a blind eye and rode on the waves of ethnicity and emotion.
Mr President Sir,
i was amused…….then i was bewildered…….then angry….
Has anyone sat down to ruminate on the differerent newspaper advertorials by the Jonathan Sambo Campaign organization? These adverts were the source of my initial amusement, bewilderment, then eventual anger.
Whatever the circumstances that have brought about the seeming ‘need’ for our sitting president to seek re-election into that most exalted position, it is presently being rubbished by the sheer lack of imagination currently being exhibited by his campaign organisation.
If my vote was in any way going to be swayed by what those advertorials were projecting, they would in all honestly be swayed to the Atiku camp by now.
I am targetting the campaign organization because i believe that Mr President is too busy to notice the monumental harm that the script writers are doing to his person as an intellectual. or is he not?
I do not think that 50 years after independence, the electorate would still be swayed by vague intentions that have no foundation. Except i am wrong in my assumptions that the Nigerian state has become increasingly sophisticated and ‘aware’ of the real issues affecting thier very existence.
The lack of depth shown in those adverts is really annoying, most especially considered against the backdrop of the huge resources being spent daily.
They are even unwittingly supplying cheap ammunition to the opposition.
A campaign that lacks clear cut direction, purpose, clarity, objectivity will only erode the credibility of the candidate, and make it difficult for them to persuade the electorate to vote for them. This i fear may ultimately lead to ‘some people’ thinking up other ‘ways’ and ‘means’ of ensuring they get thier man in.
The issues affecting the country are not being tackled. Vague statements and repetitions only go to insult the intelligence of Nigerians. (A man named Goodluck says there will be light, so there is hope…………..). Come on!!!! we can do better than this!!
Mr President, please change these guys, or call them to order. If they cannot think of intelligent campaign ads , then they are not worth thier remunerations.
Mr President,a campaign presents an opportunity to show the country who YOU are. What your views are on burning issues; what your focus and policy thrust will be.
These will tell us that your administration( incoming or outgoing) knows its onions. It will readily establish in our minds that you have a deep understanding of our problems as a country, and you have a roadmap of how to extricate us from our present economic morass!
Your campaign should be like an unsolicited job interview extoling your strenghts, virtues, tenets, philosophies, programmes, visions etc. It should be an opportunity to SELL yourself!
A situation where elaborate newspaper advertorials and musical jingles that do not send any message of hope, assault our collective senses, is not good enough. Adult and children everywhere hum that song……Goodluck to you, Goodluck to me……Goodluck to everybody…….. sounds like a song of consolation; a song that says ‘no worry , e go better’. In street parlance , that is the poor mans’ prayer. A prayer muttered out of hopelessness and despair.
Your campaign sir is supposed to address this despair and hopelessness.
I have seen public vehicles branded ‘a breath of fresh air’. What is that breath of fresh air? Where can it be found? In what form can it, or would it be found? How do we ordinary citizens get directions to this place where fresh air can be found? Is it in your possession sir? Then how do we benefit sir?
Your campaign organization should be able to constructively project messages that would clearly bring out the answers to these questions in a way that will leave the opposition ‘breathless’! get it?
Please sir, let the campaigns transcend references to your bio-data. The people in charge should justify the confidence and other resources you have rendered to them, and come up with a befitting legacy that will dwell on your abilities and not your name sir.
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