I was really excited on Saturday when I received
news of the eventual visit of President Muhammad Buhari’s media team to him in
London. I had always felt that the exclusion of the media team from the London
medical vacation and the various visits practically undermined the Presidential
media office, and created the space for the mismanagement of the communication
process around and about the President’s illness....
I could never have imagined my own boss in our
time, travelling without me or shutting me out of any important event. He took
my team everywhere. Every President has what is called a Main Body. This
comprises his first line of assistants, namely his Chief Security Officer,
Aide-de-Camp, Chief Detail, Chief Physician, State Chief of Protocol, Personal
Assistant (Luggage), Personal Assistant (Private matters), and of course, the
Special Adviser (Media and Publicity)/Official Spokesperson.
Whereas other parts of this body face their own challenges, the major problem
that the President’s media team often faces is that everyone in the Presidency,
and even persons from outside, particularly the na-my-brother-dey-there
crowd tends to assume that they know a lot about the
media. They probably have an uncle who once worked as a journalist or newspaper
vendor, or they happen to know one or two editors or correspondents, who are
perpetually telling them how the media team is not doing what it is supposed to
do.
While other parts of the
President’s Main Body are usually civil servants, the Chief Physician and the
Special Adviser (Media) are traditionally political appointees, and they are
easily the targets of so many people who want their positions. My then
colleague, the Chief Physician used to complain bitterly about how on many
occasions he had to warn self-appointed physicians who used to recommend
vitamins and other drugs for the President behind his back. In the corridors of
power, the jostling for power, territory, and space could be psychologically
crippling and emotionally corrosive.
I recall in particular,
how in those days, (indeed, yesterday is beginning to sound like those days!),
some persons used to draw attention to how the media is managed in the US White
House. After a while, I started asking them: “have you ever worked in this
White House, that you talk so eloquently about?” Now, we have seen a different
White House under President Donald Trump, and hence, when I call up “the White
House experts”, their only response these days is that “it is not easy.” Of
course, no part of Presidential work is easy.
There is also no standard
formula for serving a President. No two presidencies are alike in any way. The
nature and character of an executive Presidency is determined by the
style/temperament/competence/choices of the individual President and the
circumstances of his tenure, and it is these same factors that account for the
differences between great, mediocre and bad Presidents. To each category,
history is the eventual judge.
Nonetheless, I thought it
was wrong to have kept President Buhari’s team out of the London trips. The
core team should have been there all the time to take photographs, issue
statements, if needed, organize video recordings, liaise with local
journalists, and manage “inconvenient” journalism and public perception. But
what did we have? The various pictures taken of the President until the visit
by his media team, looked like photos taken by quacks. The President was
presented as if he was a statue, or at best, as a sick man propped up for
photographic effect. Nobody even paid attention to his wardrobe.
I imagined that some
characters would have filled the gap left by the absence of the media team, and
would have been busy taking pictures with a miserable gadget, not knowing that
photos are meant to tell stories and that they are taken with the brain.
Whoever was behind that newspaper vendor style of journalism did the President
a disservice and was responsible for most of the damage that was done. The real
damage was that Nigerians did not believe the official narrative, they
concluded that the pictures were photo-shopped or that they were old pictures
and that there was an attempt to hoodwink the public. It didn’t help that
whoever took those early pictures focused on the President’s weak points: his
fingers and arms in a poor pose, for example.
But the game changed the
day Bayo Omoboriowo accompanied seven governors to London to see the President.
With five pictures, the President’s official photographer showed him in better
light. The photographs presented him as a living being. Every Presidential
assistant is as important as the amount of access and empowerment that he/she
enjoys. Many Presidents undermine their media team, as US President Trump has
done. I consider the visit to London by President Buhari’s media team, a form
of rehabilitation, for the team and for the office. The meaning of that visit
was not lost on the team either.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on
his arrival at the Abuja House, looked like he had been grinning about 100
metres away before he met the President. When the President extended his hands
for a handshake, Alhaji Lai Mohammed did a Nigerian version of the Cameroonian
Bidoung challenge. He bowed close to 90 degrees. Even when the President took
another person’s hand, Lai Mohammed was still busy bowing. When the President
praised him, he grinned so much, I thought he was going to prostrate! My
brothers, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu didn’t bow, they stayed professional,
but I have never seen both former Presidents of the Nigerian Guild of Editors
grin so enthusiastically!
Lauretta Onochie was
probably the biggest beneficiary of the visit. Considered by opposition
activists a footnote in the Presidency pretending to be a valuable attack dog,
her inclusion in that trip has elevated her relevance. She still has a lot to
learn on the job though, especially from the masters of the attack dog game in
Nigerian politics: the inimitable and talented Femi Fani-Kayode, the
grandmaster of this chivalric Order, Doyin Okupe, the senior warden of
rebuttals, Lai Mohammed, Ayodele Fayose, Reno Omokri, Lere Olayinka, Deji Adeyanju,
and Jude Ndukwe. Given the nature of Nigerian politics, future Nigerian
presidents will certainly need the services of these dogged political fighters
to complement the officialdom of Presidential spokesmanship.
Lauretta Onochie has a
lot to learn from them, albeit she is doing much better than the pathetic
play-safe crowd in the Buhari team but the London recognition should further
empower her. Abike Dabiri-Erewa was also in London, curtseying with both legs
and hands; she was described in the reports as Senior Special Assistant on
Diaspora Matters, but I guess she was included in the team in her professional
right as a seasoned broadcast journalist. Bayo Omoboriowo, the official
photographer, was also in attendance and when it was his turn to have a
Presidential handshake, he grinned and shook so much he almost staged an
Olamide-inspired Wo-challenge. I hope he remembered to inform the President
that his wife had just been delivered of twins and that being a father of twins
has serious implications in Yorubaland!
Together, the team
delivered a professional reportage. Brilliant. Different. Good moment for the
Presidency’s Media Department. Whereas previous coverage before the Governors’
visit showed the President in an unconvincing manner, his media team has
managed to show him in a three-dimensional frame. We saw him sitting, standing,
and walking. He shook hands. He talked. His wardrobe was different. He appeared
animated and alive. With that visit, many doubts have been laid to rest through
the power of media. We now know that Buhari can talk. Dirty-minded persons may
even stretch the matter and imagine that our President has been engaging in
“the other room” skelewu in London. The media team has also managed to
establish that medication or not, Buhari remains in charge. He is still
President and he is not incapacitated.
In the kind of system
that we run, there cannot be two Presidents at a time. When you have a living
and breathing President, be he in Iceland or Antarctica, for whatever reason,
he remains the President. This, thus, creates a special problem for Acting
President Yemi Osinbajo. The combined interpretation of the to-ing and froing
to London to visit President Buhari is the impression that whereas Acting
President Osinbajo has an office, transmitted to him constitutionally in the
light of Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution, he has neither the power nor the
authority of that office, or he is not being allowed to enjoy the full benefits
of his legal status. This puts Nigeria in a lurch, technically and
pragmatically and let no one make any bones about that.
What is worse is the
declaration by the media team that the President’s return now lies in the hands
of his doctors and he is resolved to obey their orders. It is tragic that
Nigeria’s sovereignty, which resides in part in the office of the President,
has been ceded to UK doctors. They alone can determine when Nigeria can have
its President back in the homeland. Saddening as that situation is, not even
the Queen of England or the British Prime Minister has deemed it necessary to
visit President Buhari or seek audience with him.
This egregious insult is
well-deserved by Nigeria and other African countries whose leaders embark on
medical tourism to Europe, Asia and North America. The intelligence agencies in
these countries have all the strategic information on our leaders and country,
but we are happy to play third fiddle in global politics. In 2050, Nigeria’s
population is likely to be over 300 million, with some of the youngest people
in the world being Nigerians. If by 2050, we do not have enough good hospitals
and medical facilities to take care of our people, we would be a doomed nation.
This is not a task for
Buhari’s media team. But just as they tried to put out a fire in London, another
had already started at home. By the way, a Presidential media department is a
Fire Service office and an ambulance operation. There is always another fire
next time and victims in need of desperate rescue. In the present instance, a
group called “Our-mumu-don-do” group, led by Charly Boy, the self-acclaimed
Area Fada of Frustrated Nigerians had begun a protest in Abuja asking President
Buhari to resume office or resign.
They were echoing the
protests of those who have argued that the Nigerian electorate voted for a
President not an absentee one, that they voted in the expectation that their
President would stay in office and serve them, and did not expect that the
President would become an apparition or a London-based tourist and museum
attraction. Charly Boy, 66, went out with his pro-democracy troops, but they
were tear-gassed and harassed by the police. They were accused of engaging in
unlawful pro-corruption and irresponsible activity that was hijacked by
hoodlums. That of course is stupid talk.
At issue was the right of
every Nigerian to protest without being molested, and the right to free speech.
When free speech is denied, hate speech is encouraged. It is ironic that the
same government that is so concerned about hate speech is the same one promoting
it.
Meanwhile, sycophantic
speech is encouraged. To counter the Charly Boy group, someone organized a
pro-Buhari group, which has been busy dancing around Abuja proclaiming that
Buhari will win the 2019 election, denouncing those who want him to resign. I
have taken a look at this group and they look like a bunch of hoodlums, every
one of them, but they have so far enjoyed police protection and the government
is very happy with them. When government gains one thing with one hand, some
other characters remove it with another hand. This is the sign of the times.
But there are unresolved
questions that will not go away just like that. For how long will the President
remain on medical vacation in London, even when the Constitution, the country’s
basic law, is silent and ambiguous on this score? What is the actual cost of
the President’s absence in a context that disallows the transfer of power and
authority in the presence of an apparently living and said-to-be-capable
President who is otherwise indisposed?
I’ll not ask that the
visits to London be stopped, in case that is part of the doctors’ therapy, but
it is ridiculous and insensitive that government officials are now visiting the
President in medical exile, with some of them posing for photo-ops with their children.
Our President should not be turned into a tourist attraction and the Abuja
House in London should not become a museum.
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