Editor’s note: More and more Nigerians feel inclined to agree that President Muhammadu Buhari should deal with frictions that have prevented him and his party, the APC, from demonstrating tangible results in the first month of governance. The Naij.com columnist ‘Yomi Kazeem goes even further and says that President Buhari should first focus on his spokesmen — the ‘bridge’ between him and the people — instead of trying to battle some external forces, incuding the PDP which is now in the opposition to the ruling APC.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the original author. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of  Naij.com, its editors or other contributors.
Amid the various criticisms Goodluck Jonathan faced over the course of his presidency, one particular criticism remained constant: the poor choice of media handlers. Jonathan’s spokesmen won him little support as, gaffe after gaffe, they turned out to be one of the biggest reasons for the disillusionment with the his presidency.
On social media, these men — the mouthpieces of a president — were often seen engaging in abusive exchanges (the online version of fisticuffs) with regular Nigerians. Their ‘ability’ to read the tone and mood of the nation was infamously horrible. They became notorious for publishing photos of President Jonathan dancing and being merry a day after bomb explosions and deaths of Nigerians.
As far as presidential spokesmen go, the last set was a clear manual of how not to be a presidential spokesman.
Given the widespread belief that President Jonathan’s handling of the media and choice of spokesmen might have cost him the presidency to some extent, everyone assumed it would literally be impossible for his successor to repeat the same mistakes. Nevertheless, one month into the Buhari presidency, the murmurs of his ineptitude considering media handling are becoming more and more audible.
Primarily, the job of a presidential spokesperson is to relay messages from the president to Nigerians. But their job often goes far beyond that in many ways. One of their biggest roles is to forge, build and tweak the general perception of the president. So far, President Buhari’s media handlers have done little in that regard. The lack of a crisp and coordinated communications strategy since President Buhari’s taking over the office has resulted in the shaping of different perceptions of his presidency to fit various narratives. With social media accounts of his spokesmen sometimes silent for days, many, including international media, are steadily drumming up the perception that nothing is going on.
Coupled with Buhari’s lack of appointment of key government personnel as well as his cabinet, this narrative becomes easier to push with little resistance from the president’s ‘last frontier’ — his spokesmen.
Recently, one of the president’s advisers was in for a hard time on social media following an unfortunate tweet:
Predictably, the responses from Nigerians showed their displeasure:
Similarly, there are question marks over their ability to relay the president’s empathy amid the spate of recent bombings in the Northeast. Having been another crucial failing of Jonathan’s spokesmen, it is worrying that it is a reoccurring error.
President Buhari came into office on the back of an excellent and coordinated campaign which had excellent communication and clarity of purpose as one its defining hallmarks. Since taking office, however, this key component that won him the presidency has disappeared. As it stands, Nigeria could well be on its way back to the period where the president’s spokesmen were the first thing with which he was attacked instead of being his last line of defence.
On May 29, it appeared those days were over; we might have been wrong.
‘Yomi Kazeem is a media professional based in Lagos, Nigeria.