I must admit the challenge of picking a topic to dissect wasn’t an easy task for the very simple reason that there were so many issues worthy of attention. There was the gathering of security chiefs at the House of Representatives to be grilled on their fight against all kinds of deviant behaviours with special focus on the insurgency/Boko Haram misadventure, militancy in the Niger Delta, kidnapping and secessionist threat.
The answers of service chiefs proved that the era of well trained and very brilliant officers had indeed arrived. They spoke intelligently except that that they decided to stay on the old path, which exactly is responsible for the troubles besetting our country. On the surface, some of their answers appear unassailable but when subjected to critical review the hollowness appears instantly. I would have loved to critically review their positions and to scientifically show why most of them are off the mark.
Some the judgments handed down by the Appeal Court also deserve detailed scrutiny. I am not a lawyer yet that acknowledgement doesn’t detract from the fact that an average well educated and intelligent person can understand facts that lead to legal conclusions. We can know when right verdicts are made. In the case of Plateau State so many candidates elected by the people had their victories overturned because the court said their party was “structureless.” In another instance the party defied court order.
I am not certain I could be wrong that the appropriate punishment could be disqualification, perhaps and I use the word reservedly in this instance. Getting the recalcitrant officers at the time called to answer to their act of disobedience or better still a rerun would have served the interest of democracy far more better than awarding mandate to a loser. Social justice is a strong factor in keeping the society healthy and thriving. After all justice is substantially what the judge thinks and says it is. The drama in the Kano gubernatorial case is another.
If 160,000 votes is at the heart of the matter and not qualification, a rerun without the usual shenanigans we see about our elections would settle the matter in the best way. I can’t talk about this today perhaps next time.
I cast my lot with the headline of this topic. It is a very sensitive and strategic matter at the heart of nation building and so deserves in-depth attention. In the last three weeks or so, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, has made very significant public interventions, three of them on behalf of the President Bola Tinubu administration he serves. First was over the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) imbroglio with Imo State government, which spilled over to become a national concern.
Before Ribadu’s deft intervention, the Federal and Imo State government relevant officials, including their Information Ministry and image managers were torn between partisanship and power management etiquettes. I don’t want to believe they didn’t know the weight of issues involved in assaulting Joe Ajaero the way we saw it happen, especially when he is the President of a union like Nigeria Labour Congress. Stripping any citizen of right to respectable life in his country even elsewhere is a serious assault on the basis of the existence of humanity itself. In terms of governance, it was an attack on the very foundation of democracy.
The Imo State Government denied complicity, but the statements of many of its officers gave out a veiled anger, which was enough to underline the unleashing of bestiality dished out. The Federal Government kept mute until NLC proclaimed a national strike. That was when information managers responded in the style of “attack dogs”, calling out Ajaero in all manner of derogatory terms, ending by branding him a “political partisan”.
For those who are knowledgeable, these managers by the pattern they chose lost the moral high ground as well as professional integrity. A great information manager shouldn’t act the bully. His sense of understanding of the issue in play ought to be excellent and at its highest best, clarity and balance must be unassailable. We didn’t see these in those troubling hours. The issue was respect for human dignity and life. They failed to get this vital point. The trend has been that way. What they didn’t know or knew but played down, Ribadu knew and the importance of finding a quick durable solution by attacking the problem from the root.
He issued a statement rightly identifying the real issue and followed with a promise to get the masterminds arrested. That was the best approach to suitable public relations management and it worked like magic. Was it in Ribadu’s place to go public the way he did? The right answer is capital no. Motives don’t confer legality else process of governance becomes riotous. Cross lanes happens when officials don’t know their roles or when there is under performance. Low efficiency would always leave uncomfortable gaps.
Ribadu addressing a crop of top military brass trying to make excuses for his boss told them they met a near empty treasury, funds and payments having been concluded in advance of real cash receipts. He said the country was broke. That was another good job done badly. Military is his constituency but straying into the state of finance from that angle wasn’t his to say. It was for the President or his Finance Minister. Ribadu meant well but he was not the right person to say so. He did not take the consequences of his disclosures into account.
Declaring a country bankrupt is a very serious matter. The implications are wide. Ribadu said it because we have this political culture where everybody wants to be seen and heard. How many of us know the name of the American, British, Russian or Chinese National Security Advisers? How many times do we see them in gatherings talking about state of national security? There are power management protocols, while some officials in office by the role they play are supposed to operate from behind the scene. These guys hold the reins of government and only very few close enough persons know who they are and what roles they play. Ribadu serves his term far better by being a behind-the-scene officer of state.
The job of a spokesperson is an Executive assignment. Some degree of power revolves round it and so requires some appreciable level of independence. Practitioners require boldness and courage without which they can’t stand the aura of power and pre-eminence of their bosses and around him. The image manager needs to go above these barricades and many “court jesters” and members of the kitchen cabinet if he must be effective and to make a big success of the assignment.
The challenge facing spokespersons has been exacerbated by the fact that information dissemination and management is taken as a task so simple that every Dick and Harry thinks he can do. Many on the political turf equate the entire job assignment with writing press releases, handing to correspondents or finding a way to get it out there. This constitutes a huge problem in itself. The response by many professionals has been to become very subservient and unduly assertive in the bid to prove proficiency and to establish a sense of absolute loyalty.
Managing the delicate balance has tended to create a unique variant of dictators, worse than those who engaged them to help polish their image and that of the government they lead. The truth is that an ideal spokesman must be very knowledgeable, proactive and anticipatory. He is not required to be the alter ego of his boss rather the soft touch, who quells storms and pours water to quench raging infernos. He ought not enter the arena except in very extreme cases, where doing so becomes inevitable. His state of balance enhances believability. A rancorous public relations officer will not have audience.
Governments and leaders can climb very high if their information and image are managed in the best professional terms possible. Nigeria, our country needs this especially at the time we are in. We don’t need, brashness or hostility; neither do we need falsehood and propaganda. We should abhor staccato talking by public, officers; it blurs communication and makes comprehension such a difficult endeavour. These factors highlighted are precursors to fatal kind of instability and conflicts.