Levick is being criticised by Nigerians on
micro-blogging site, twitter.
———————————-
Following Thursday’s social media campaign
launched by Nigerians against it, Levick, the
Washington-based public relations and
lobby firm, has denied it was hired to whitewash
the image of the president as regards the kidnap
of the Chibok school girls.
Levick, accused by critics of being hired to
change the narrative of Nigerian
government’s inept handling of the kidnap, said
its job is to help the government to, among
others, fight terrorism.
The PR firm told PREMIUM TIMES its mission is to
help the government rescue the girls and fight
terrorism.
Levick, however, did not explain how a PR firm,
which essentially specialises in communication,
has the capacity to help the government rescue
the girls.
It also did not explain why after almost after
three weeks of being hired, terrorist attacks,
rather than reduce, has intensified. In fact,
Friday morning, another attack occurred in
Damboa, a community that is a stone’s throw
from Chibok where the girls were kidnapped.
The attacks have continued despite the state of
emergency declared on Borno, Yobe, and
Adamawa since May last year.
In an email to this newspaper after an earlier
telephone conversation, the Vice President of
Levick, Philip Elwood, described his firm’s
mission in the paragraph below.
“As the world witnesses the brutality of Boko
Haram, and its cowardly tactics of using children
as pawns in their terrorist campaign, LEVICK’s
only mission is assisting the Government of
Nigeria with its number one priority — the
rescue of the girls and combating terrorism,”
Mr. Elwood said in his email.
This is after LEVICK itself admitted to the Hill, an
American newspaper specialising in covering
parliament, that part of its strategy is to
“amplify” what the president is saying and doing
to find the girls.
“There’s got to be a way to amplify what he’s
saying and doing to find these girls because over
here in America, we’re not hearing much
about his effort,” Lanny Davis, an Executive Vice
President at Levick, had said.
The social media campaign, started after a
statement was sent out to media organisations
by the President’s Senior Special Assistant
on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe.
Since Levick was contracted to handle the
communication strategies as regards the kidnap
of the girls and terrorism, the statement was
believed to have been written by LEVICK or
absolutely, with its approval.
Mr. Okupe’s statement attacked the
#BringBackOurGirls campaigners and blamed
them for the refusal of parents of the abducted
girls to meet with the president on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, political forces within the
Nigerian chapter of Bring Back Our Girls have
decided to take this opportunity to play
politics with the situation and the grief of the
parents and the girls,” the statement said. “They
should be ashamed of their actions.”
The statement also referred to the campaigners
as engaging in “psychological terrorism.”
In a telephone conversation with this reporter
before he sent the email, Mr Elwood denied that
his firm was not hired to whitewash the image of
the Nigerian government adding that it accepted
the job to help the government combat Boko
Haram.
He was however non-committal on whether or
not the firm wrote the statement Mr. Okupe
distributed.
“You used the term whitewashed. That’s not
what we were hired to do,” he said. “We were
hired to communicate what the government is
doing to find the girl, combat Boko Haram.
That’s it.”
When asked to comment on what observers
consider government’s lethargy at the onset of
the abduction, Mr. Elwood said Levick
couldn’t comment on that.
The #someoneTellLevick hashtag trended in
Nigeria on Thursday generating over 3,600
tweets, according to social media analytics site,
Topsy.
Nigeria’s social media users accused Levick of
despising and intimidating Nigerians regarding
the over 250 girls kidnapped by members of the
Boko Haram sect.
Three months after the girls were kidnapped;
about 217 of them are still believed to be with
the Boko Haram.

Source: http://m.premiumtimesng.com/blog/2014/07/19/exclusive-levick-speaks-says-it-was-hired-by-nigerian-government-to-find-chibok-girls-fight-terrorism/

Free mobile app security app created to help with personal safety of Nigerians. It is a called 9ra Naija rescue alert, available on download on google play and google. Let your family and friends know about it. Thank you.

Let me know what you think of this app
http://www.naijarescuealert.com/