Presidential spokesmen Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu have acquire a reputation for combativeness in the discharge of their duties as the president’s image-makers. In the past few weeks, they have been in the eye of the storm, verbally cutting, thrusting and scalding critics and opponents, most of whom they describe in unsavoury language and have promoted as enemies of the presidency.
Their combativeness is probably a product of how they perceive their official duties as presidential spokesmen, especially since they assumed office in 2015. As senior journalists, they were not known to veer towards the hysterical when they edited newspapers or wrote columns. They were not always temperate as writers, but were guilty of occasional hyperboles, yet they were generally well honed, restrained and hardly exceeded the boundaries of journalistic etiquette. As presidential spokesmen, however, the two experienced media men have transformed into something close to unrecognisable. Are they too far gone to be helped?
It is pointless making references to how they have responded to those who criticise or attack the president or the presidency. From all indications, every successive month offers opportunity to reassess the two spokesmen whose official attitudes have merged into one indistinguishable whole, and whose verbal and written responses have become acerbic, unsparing and relentless.
Perhaps they enjoyed a honeymoon with the critics and enemies of the president in the early months and years of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency, but no one remembers that brief interregnum today. What they remember are the spokesmen’s bilious rage and the searing and unforgiving manner they give short shrift to critics. Indeed, no month passes without verbal and literary cannons being launched against the ‘enemy’ from the spokesmen, sometimes in quick succession, sometimes in synchronised terror, regardless of public misgivings.
No sooner had Mr Adesina finished taking on the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) days ago, which he accused of being irritants and featherweights, than Mr Shehu charged into the Coalition of Northern Youth Groups (CNG), describing them as spoilsports of democracy. In both NEF and CNG, as in nearly all instances, critics of the Buhari presidency hardly go beyond calling out the president on his democratic, economic, and security policies records, often remonstrating with the president and his team gently and reasonably, but sometimes harshly.
Last Sunday, the NEF had issued this warning signed by its leader, Ango Abdullahi, a professor of Agriculture: “Northern Elders Forum (NEF) is alarmed at the rising insecurity of communities and their properties in the North. Recent escalation of attacks by bandits, rustlers and insurgents leave the only conclusion that the people of the North are now completely at the mercy of armed gangs who roam towns and villages at will, wreaking havoc. It would appear that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and governors have lost control over the imperatives of protecting people of the North, a constitutional duty that they swore to uphold.
The situation is getting worse literally by the day as bandits and insurgents appear to sense a huge vacuum in political will and capacity which they exploit with disastrous consequences on communities and individuals…Our current circumstances in the North clearly demonstrate that President Buhari’s administration has woefully failed to achieve either. This is unacceptable. We demand an immediate and comprehensive improvement of our security in the North. We are tired of excuses and verbal threats which criminals laugh at, and our fellow citizens see as a clear failure of leadership which they see as part of them. Enough is enough.”
Mr Adesina was angry and contemptuous in his response to Prof Abdullahi. Said he: “We are not surprised by this latest statement by Prof. Abdullahi, and our past position on what his group represents remains unchanged: a mere irritant and featherweight.
The former vice chancellor signed the statement under the banner of Northern Elders Forum (NEF). Hearing that title, you would think the body was a conglomeration of true elders. But the truth is that NEF is just Ango Abdullahi, and Ango Abdullahi is NEF. NEF is merely waving a flag that is at half-mast. President Buhari steadily and steadfastly focuses on the task of retooling Nigeria, and discerning Nigerians know the true state of the nation. They don’t need a paper tiger to tell them anything.” It was clear the presidential spokesman ignored Prof Abdullahi’s complaint, choosing instead to denigrate him and focus entirely on his person.
Almost as if taking a cue from Mr Adesina, Mr Shehu also took on the coalition of northern youths who were voicing the same complaints. Led by Nastura Sharif, the youths had taken to the streets to protest against mounting insecurity, and had even called for the resignation of some members of the Buhari government.
Not only was Mr Sharif arrested, some of the protesters were also picked up, and the police insisted they would be prosecuted because their demands had become political and were designed to instigate bad blood against the government. Though public pressure led to the release of the protest leaders after two days, and the police had egg on their face, it did not dissuade Mr Shehu from opening his mouth and putting his foot in it. Said Mr Shehu in his reaction to the CNG protests: “For a start, if the group dared to issue such a comment under non-democratic method, they would have met a swift and harsh retribution from a dictatorial government. They should thank their stars that we are operating a truly democratic government, where the rights of free speech are guaranteed and protected.”
Both presidential spokesmen often speak as if they regret Nigeria’s democratic experiment, as if they long for military dictatorship to curb the people’s, and particularly protesters’ obstreperous tendencies. The constitution under which the president was elected also gives certain inalienable rights to the people, just as it spells out the duties and responsibilities of the government.
Neither Mr Adesina nor Mr Shehu is at liberty to pick what pleases them from the constitution on behalf of the president. Indeed, far more than his spokesmen, the president has generally been more restrained than his image-makers. The presidential spokesmen think that a dictatorship would help them discharge their responsibilities more easily. They are wrong. But perhaps they speak longingly of dictatorship unconsciously, without meaning to. In any case, given the intensity of public push-back, the spokesmen should by now have realised that they have propounded and propagated dictatorial tendencies far more easily than anyone in the presidency.
Many commentators, including this column, now firmly believe that since 1999, no presidential spokesman has been more intolerant of public criticism than Mesrrs Adesina and Shehu. Their image-making job is made far more complicated and unduly difficult by the disposition, not to say indisposition, of their principal, the president.
President Buhari’s political, social and economic ideas and policies are generally inchoate, uninspiring and often contradictory. Not only is the president himself unable to enunciate his ideas well, he is also unable to give them the vigorous push required to sell them to the people. In such circumstances, where critics and experts constantly pick holes in those policies and the global environment grows more hostile, the Buhari presidency is likely to be assailed by criticisms and denunciations. Unfortunately for Messrs Adesina and Shehu, the president has often met those challenges with curious imperturbability, if not outright silence. It, therefore, behoved presidential spokesmen to defend the indefensible.
But there is nothing to suggest that such a task must be handled with the natural nastiness that is unbecoming of their office as spokesmen. Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo might seem from hindsight a better and more agile president than President Buhari, but between 1999 and 2007, the former military general was universally hated and reviled. He had not purged himself of his military culture and hangover, his critics snorted, and he sometimes gave the impression that he knew everything, even pretending to sham intellectualism.
But neither of his spokesmen, Tunji Oseni or Remi Oyo, descended to the nastiness and intolerance that Messrs Adesina and Shehu luxuriate in. No one could also argue that ex-president Goodluck Jonathan was a leadership treasure, a man full of ideas and inspiration. To many Nigerians during his years as president between 2010 and 2015, Dr Jonathan was incompetent, embarrassingly hesitant, and undeserving of a second term. In fact, at a time, the eminent zoologist regarded himself as the most insulted African head of state, insults he thought impatiently he did not deserve. But his spokesman, Reuben Abati, as frustrated as he was in the face of intransigent critics, and though eager to justify the unjustifiable, hardly descended to the cesspool, preferring at worst to merely skirt its fringes.
Messrs Adesina and Shehu may have very unpleasant public relations jobs to do given the nature and peculiar circumstances of the Buhari presidency, but they have never managed to give the impression that they are doing it as an unpleasant burden. They seem to love the acerbic responses they give to the most minute of provocations, and are ecstatic launching into tirades at the least criticism. They enjoy the abuse they dish out to enemies, and have indeed contributed copiously to the lexicon of presidential tirade. There must be something in them that makes them amenable to the facilities of the cesspool.
But can they change? It is doubtful. Can they be pressured to adopt a new and more moderate style? It is hard to say. What is clear, however, is that their style and approach are not inspiring and may even make more enemies for the president. The urgent task is to persuade them to try something new, something elevated. But who will undertake the task of reforming the two spokesmen is as important as whether they can be persuaded to treat the pearls of reform cast before them with the depth and circumspection fitting their offices and their journalistic antecedents.
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