Follow Us on Google
There some beliefs and principles we have ran with for a long and which we held as the greatest wisdom which for reasons of new understanding we ought to discard with immediately for the health and development of our society. Often we have been told “dogs don’t eat dogs”, many groups have hidden under this to commit various heinous crimes and leaving organizations and society worse for it.
The other would be “know the truth, speak the truth” but they add a caveat, not all truths should be spoken. Ehnnnnn! Now we examine these before we get into the nitty gritty of the day’s discourse. Who says dogs won’t “eat”, it may sound outlandish from the mere thought perspective but the reality is dogs are carnivores and so will pounce on any fresh flesh thrown at it, it won’t matter if it is dog meat.
Animal instinct leaves no ground for retrospection; this is the plain truth. Come to the second, hard truth may appear uncomfortable, it could stir the foundation of families, organizations and big societies but it is the jolt to the foundations of deceit that entities provoke renewals. Those that cover sins, promote disorder, which ultimately expand to wider conflicts that often turn very fatal.
Wars of attrition plaguing most society and countries have their foundations in vain attempts to cover various types of deviant behaviors and high degrees of social injustices. Now it is to avoid these maladies man accepted to create government and to it various departments to carry out various strategic functions for the good of people inhabiting various designated areas. Communication is one such area.
Thomas Jefferson one time President of America responding to the argument if communication should have a place in governance or not, was very clear that it far more important to have the information arm without government than have government with communication departments. Without government there would still be various activities going on in society, communication would keep people in the know and so provide some form of organization and order.
But government without communication will leave everyone in the dark, ignorance is the first stage of the reign of anarchy. That society would be one in which everyone does what he likes. It will be a set up where rumours and propaganda thrive and when this is the case, a very thin line separates normalcy from devastating form of anarchy. So in a nutshell information departments are set up principal to open government and its activities to the people who are the ultimate beneficiaries, the end users.
The should explain the leaders to the people and while governance runs, take time to explain in very clear terms the policies, programs and likely outcomes. They do discharge this onerous task via different channels like press releases, talking through print and electronic channels, doing documentaries and writing books among others. Some could double this with speech writing for their principals. It is an executive function we must make this clear.
Now we have stated it is job assignment designed to make the wheels of government and governance to run very smooth. The appointees must have certain qualities, knowledge, passion, vision and clarity of Thought. The must be men who stay above primordial issues of their clime. They must be persons who rove around the big visions and who must have capacity to defend their bosses and institutions without attracting enemies and enmity to both.
Their language must at all time be inviting, have ability to smoothen rough edges and to improve bonds of friendship and brotherhood among members of a group and between members of same group but contending forces. They must have capacity to talk to their bosses when situations are normal and things running very smoothly and moreso when he or she seems doomed to further mistakes. Spokesperson is a re-trainer. Operators must have ability to call back bosses who try to cross the line of decency.
This is why journalists have been preferred for in the main for such roles. Many have felt it is a task most suitable for men with the gift of gab so some of our leaders who think this way have opted to give this all important position to lawyers and even Para medics but in most of the instances it turned out a bad decision and terrible step. Many of these outsiders rather than talk their principals into affection, acceptance, honours and of higher legitimacy, they talked their bosses into great opprobrium and huge disgrace.
Outsiders got in because those suited for the role in many occasions seemed incapable and often very lost in action. Some showed inability to understand the terrain of politics and the character of the contending forces and groups. This omission can be fatal for the role of a spokesperson. Many by this omission have talked their bosses into very terrible conflicts that ended up consuming lives and property. When the dynamics running through competing interests in an enclave are known and well appreciated, a crisis of monumental dimension could be ignited just by mere talk or disposition.
Bayo Onanuga, President Bola Tinubu’s spokesperson walked this path before 2023 general elections and more recently on the eve of the “End bad governance” protest. Before the election he blamed Igbo in Lagos for everything evil in the place and declared them unwanted. Before the start of the protest he rolled out a statement identifying Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi, an Igbo as sponsor of the protest. It turned very instructive that when the protest held all states in the Southeast never participated.
Onanuga’s statement didn’t win friends from the Igbo for his principal and his administration and this is coming at a time the North who are his principal’s main supporters appear to be up in arms against the very man they helped to power. A well-groomed spokesperson should help his boss in different ways. He should help him dodge avoidable mistakes. You do this by speaking the truth backstage. Great spokespersons don’t enter the fray no matter how compelling it would seem or the push from layabouts who are found in very large numbers in the places of power and authority.
He must possess strength of character to push back reckless and quick fix alternatives hangers on without training would try to push forward, he must run with the mindset that when everything comes to an end, it is about his boss and history, nothing about anyone else. What outsiders did or didn’t do won’t form part of the verdict of history. It will be simply what the boss did or would have done but failed to do. It will be also about style and pattern. Nothing more.
So spokespersons who go fighting miss the tract. They become part of the problem instead of the solution they were created to be. When they turn fighters in different guises they turn out unintended enemies of those who hired them, on a much global note, they become real dangers to the larger society.
On speech writing. The public should know must of our leaders never make any contribution to addresses they read. Those designated to write look at the event, what it is all about and location, and go ahead to put pen to paper. Just their thoughts. Imagination of the servant. Nothing can be more dangerous. Many times their bosses see what they are to read at the venue of the event. This is why there is no soul to what they read, it didn’t come from their hearts or internalized knowledge, so everything in the address is hollow without passion.
When President Tinubu responded to the protest citizens couldn’t jell with the points he made. The speech carried no life. Compare that with the address by the recently elected British Prime Minister and its pungent but direct to face of the disturbances that heat a part of the country, you will understand the difference.
We need to be a little more serious if truly we want to have a country by the name Nigeria. The quality of leadership personnel is an issue. Those they appoint into positions is also of greater importance. Institutions were created to play critical roles. When they fail for whatever reason, we endanger society. Contradictions are thrown up that can be root causes of great upheavals. This is the plain truth.
