I'm not your run-of-the-mills television freak or
enthusiast. Due largely to the nature of my job, which is basically guided by
the need to beat deadlines, I hardly have time for over-indulgence in leisure
and other niceties. Whereas my wife and kids occasionally feast on the
television screen for either of their usual sops- Zee World, or Nickelodeon,
yours sincerely would always lock himself up in the study writing an editorial
or a column.
In almost all the epistles I have watched, the APC chieftains always end up leaving the studio with their noses bruised and their faces buried in shame. Their propaganda has always hit a dry well. You recall the encounter between the loquacious Joe Igbokwe of the APC and the calm, brilliant and urbane Akin Osuntokun of the PDP? It adds up to the fact that APC members go to the public arena without facts to defend their positions. It is all propaganda without proof. It's so disgusting and nauseating watching even presidential aides also making themselves objects of laughter and ridicule in the court of the public. There is something about official lying coming from the highest office in the country, the Presidency, which we must all fight, if we must extricate
It is outrageous, to say the least, that Nigerians are
confronted with a Presidency that lies on oath to the people and lies
intermittently to the world at large. If you have told a mourning Benue people
to accommodate the killer Fulani herdsmen because they (herdsmen) were their
neighbours and the next day you told your visitor in London
that the herdsmen were from Libya Benue state to curtail the menace of
herdsmen killings and the next day you told your host in far away Washington D.
C that herdsmen in your country don't carry arms, what have you just done?
You've told a big lie!
What is even more benumbing is the mendacious propaganda
by presidential aides who lack the courage to resign their appointment for
gross inefficiency and wayward hypocrisy. The magnitude of sophistry and
intellectual dishonesty being displayed by these otherwise brilliant
professionals shows that the President might obviously been reading speeches
not vetted. This is absolutely ridiculous. It is part of the obscenities and
subterfuge that Nigerians are made to contend with in this era of weird change.
But these aides who insult Nigerians for airing their views over the dismal
performance of the regime must note that Nigerians are intelligent and
discerning people who cannot swallow hook, line and sinker the jejunity and
indecorum at play from the nation's highest office in the past three years.
They must be educated enough to know that presidential
information management including speechwriting is an exercise in critical
thinking and persuasion, not an act of telling lies and abusive showmanship.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to win the conviction of the governed in a
given society without wanting to study theories of rhetoric, communication,
argumentation and decision making. But the evolution of the study of speech
communication has infused the forensics arena with fresh new ideas with the
apparent interest of world leaders in decent instruction in speaking and
professional speech education. Consequently, just as the president of a country
as big and highly endowed as Nigeria
Indeed, Nigerians are not at all surprised at this
anti-climax in the narrative regarding mounting evidence of mis-governance,
corruption and insecurity in the country. If anything, the development
vindicates their consistent, courageous conviction and principled stance that
the nation has, indeed, sunk deeper in the quagmire of official sleaze,
impunity and misrule since May 29, 2015. The double standards and hypocrisy of
the presidency in the many established cases of corrupt self-enrichment by key
government functionaries including the Maina-gate could not have earned
Nigeria's anti-corruption crusade any recognition from credible assessors
within or outside the country.
Yet, our presidency and its propaganda spin doctors
think that anything that happens in Nigeria United States
of America Nigeria United
States
At almost 58 years of nationhood, Nigeria Nigeria
The net effect of this is the sorry spectacle we have
cut for Nigeria
Amidst these blunders, this clueless administration that
cannot halt the senseless killings of defenseless Nigerians at home, is poised
to redeem its soiled image through public relations blitzkrieg abroad. Much as
it is criminal to waste the country's scarce resources on propaganda campaign
in the international media, the government must note that the real war to be
fought and won on image refurbishing is here on our shores. Everybody
appreciates government's discomfiture over the spate of external criticism of
its jaundiced policies and actions especially its failure to protect the lives
and property of Nigerians and its half-hearted and almost lethargic disposition
towards a speedy alleviation of pain and hunger among hapless Nigerians. But it
is preposterous and callous to commit our scarce resources to prosecute a
public relations campaign abroad.
That our external image is in tatters in spite of our
much-vaunted 'achievements', is enough cause to worry. But, in point of fact,
the bad press Nigeria Nigeria
*Amor, a commentator on public
issues, writes from Abuja
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