GEJ and his 2015 Presidential Election Campaign, By Oluwafemi Akinfolarin

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For me, Mr. Jonathan started to lose the Nigerian presidential election message when he allowed a silly dispute between his wife and Rotimi Amaechi to escalate into a battle of wills. The governor of Rivers state was still a nominal Jonathan stalwart back in those days and he was still making excuses for a president who even at that time showed signs of inertia and drift. And then Patience gave him a public smack down by the waterlogged wharf of Okrika and the PDP world tilted on its axis, leading to the ’16 is greater than 19’ vote at the governors’ forum elections and creating the exodus of PDP governors to ‘newPDP’ and finally APC. This single incident contributed the most to the creation of a united opposition to Mr. Jonathan’s second term bid.

A similar tipping point was when Mr. Jonathan’s surrogates openly attacked the former president Obasanjo and President Jonathan openly disregarded his predecessors’ requests with regards to alleged drug baron Mr. Buruji Kasumu. Mr. Obasanjo’s relationship with the Northern governors like Mr. Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano and Mr. Sule Lamido of Jigawa states, has always been strong and it’s hard to not see his hands in the fact that while one has jumped parties, the other is now actively failing to campaign for President Jonathan.

Another pivotal moment came after the APC coalesced from disparate political parties in 2014 and decided to sharpen their political message domestically and internationally by hiring media consultants. This should have been a clear sign to the PDP that its opponents were not playing around. They ignored it. The way the two political parties went about using external media relations firms was also a pointer. The first firm hired by APC was the consultant firm of AKPD Message & Media from Chicago led by David Axelrod, an integral part of Obama’s ‘change’ themed march to the White House.

AKPD is currently no longer working with APC. They were replaced by the firm of Burson-Marsteller (one of the largest public relations firm). These firms working with domestic firms have burnished the image of the APC and crafted a political message built around ‘change’ that has fed into a yearning amongst Nigerians for impactful governance. An example is the way the image of the presidential candidate of the opposition party was softened, culminating in widely circulated pictures of the normally stern faced, baba riga-clad General Buhari wearing a suit and playing with his grandson. The PDP-led government also employed foreign firms but these firms were more focused on lobbying and image laundering outside the shores of the country. They settled on the ‘transformation’ mantra as a result of their opponents’ choosing the ‘Change’ slogan.

The APC primary was the 3rd component. The PDP electoral campaign team had built its campaign around the premise that the APC was a team of ideologically opposed ‘strange bed fellows’ sitting together under the same umbrella merely because of political expediency. They expected an implosion at the primaries when aggrieved parties lost out. On the contrary, the primaries were superbly conducted and it burnished the democratic credentials of the party. The PDP on the contrary had a one man coronation ceremony.

The PDP presidential campaign message as far as I can see has three prongs: Painting Buhari as a monster based on his past records; playing on religious and tribal divisions and repackaging Mr. Jonathan’s minute achievements as the first step in a wide-ranging transformational agenda.

The campaign duo of Messer’s Doyin Okupe and Fani-Kayode are absolutely great attack dogs, aggressively pushing the envelope with how much mud they can sling while the online attack dogs have worked a massive treat on social media. The church visits have also worked a treat, as well as the repeated statements about Christian pilgrimages. It’s the repackaging of non-existent achievements that has failed Mr. Jonathan. You can say the grass is green until you are blue in the face but if the generality of the people see rust colored grass, they will never believe you.

APC gained their present momentum because at every step, the PDP campaign managers have managed to screw up. A really good example is last Wednesday’s presidential media chat. To the best of my knowledge, the media chat was a response to Mr. Buhari’s interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN. Therefore it was put together hurriedly. Result, Mr. Buhari came across as presidential and was able to repel the undemocratic tag while Mr. Jonathan sounded petulant, agitated and unprepared.

The bottom line is this. Mr. Jonathan is losing the election right now because he has allowed his opponent to define the electoral playing field, the message and the issues to be fought over. He has also successfully alienated his friends. In Campaign 101, that’s called ‘Losing destination before starting the journey’.