₦airaland Forum

Dele Alake, Director of Strategic Communication for the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, in this interview on NEWS CENTRAL TV, speaks on why he is marketing Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to Nigerians ahead of the 2023 general elections. TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI who monitored the interview for Daily Independent brings the excerpts:

Why do you think your principal, Tinubu, is being misunderstood by many Nigerians?

I will say he is being misunderstood by only one or two categories of Nigerians, not by Nigerians in general. There are Nigerians who have a sense of history, they do not misconstrue Bola Tinubu because they were aware and still aware of the transformation and leadership that he gave and he continues to give. So, they don’t misconstrue him. Now, there are those who could innocently misconstrue and those are the very young ones who probably were not around 23 years ago when he held sway in Lagos State and implemented all of these transformational initiatives and policies. So, they may be very green.

Then, the second category of those who could misconstrue him is the category of those who deliberately adopts selective amnesia because of envy. They do so because they envy the man’s achievement, his lofty height. What he has been able to do in terms of ideas, vision, knowledge, capacity, courage. He has been able to demonstrate all of these attributes of leadership and naturally, like sugar attracts ants, success attracts envy, especially in our own environment. In Nigeria and Africa, it does. So, those are the categories of people that I will say misconstrue Asiwaju. But for the rest of Nigerians who have a sense of history, who are very honest, thorough and meticulous in their analysis and those who subject issues to critical analysis, they do not misconstrue him at all. In fact, they admire him and they commend his giant strides. Today, where he ruled, all the other candidates, whether Atiku, Obi, Kwankwaso and others that I didn’t mention, all of them have been in public office but there is none of them whose records of performance or antecedents in office matches the enduring legacies of Asiwaju.

Some people have praised Tinubu for headhunting good hands while others said it is just a fluke. What is your take on that?

It can never be a fluke. Let me tell you one thing; only the deep can call to the deep. That is a truism. Nobody can controvert that. You cannot give what you don’t have. You cannot attract brains, experts, professionals and technocrats if you are a dullard, dimwitted or you are dunce. If you are bland, jaded or stale, you cannot attract the best. The headhunting capability of Asiwaju is legendary. Everybody, including his enemy acknowledges that. That means the man is not a pushover. Many years ago when we were still in office, there was a phone-in programme and an old man from Ibadan called and said ‘oh, we know you people are doing well in Lagos because Tinubu has lots of professionals and experts around him and in his cabinet’. I told the man that ‘sir, it only takes the deep to call to the deep. You have to give it to Bola Tinubu. He’s been able to identify talent, put round pegs in round holes’. Don’t forget, it is not just identifying those talents and putting them in their right compartments where their efficiency will be maximized, he is also able to manage them, because management of human beings is the most difficult venture. You can manage machines because at the push of a button, the machine will respond. That is not so with human beings.

News Central TV is a pan-African station and Africans are watching this interview. Africans are asking question why Bola Tinubu who is noted to be a proud African be having strategic meetings outside the continent specifically in Europe?

Again, I have had that being said. I think it speaks to those who condemn such a move. Within their rights, it is their views. When you are in a political, competitive environment, the objective is to win the election. Now, this competitive environment or politics is a game of numbers. So, there will be alignments, realignments, caucuses, interests and various hues and tendencies to negotiate votes in order to swell your ranks and your votes. So, if in the course of ensuring that you attract and negotiate with as many groups or tendencies as possible in order to swell your ranks and increase your votes, one or two of such groups now decide to go and hold their meetings outside the country, would you now say because they are not holding it in your country, you won’t go there? Because you know you are looking for numbers. It’s a game of numbers.

Talking about numbers, Nyesom Wike, love him or hate him, it looks like he is the new bride everybody wants on his side. What can you tell us from the Bola Tinubu camp? Are you making some overtures to the camp of Wike?

Of course, they met. That meant there was a kind of rapprochement that is ongoing there. It is not also limited to Nyesom Wike. Like I told you, this is a game of numbers. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and his ticket must be looking for others to increase the numbers. So, talks are going on. Alignments and realignment negotiations are going on and this will go on necessarily until the day of election. That is the nature of politics and electioneering anywhere in the world.

Is your organisation also making that move within the APC keeping in mind that since after the primaries, there are notable names that have not openly declared support even though we know the campaigns haven’t officially started?

You have mentioned it. The campaign hasn’t started. So, they don’t want to jump the gun. Don’t forget that my principal is a very experienced politician. He is a consummate one. He knows the regulations and he is not in any way about to flout any INEC regulations. So, let the others be going around and flouting, he won’t be, because he is the man to beat. He has to be the most careful of them all because everyone is looking for any straw to claw on with which to denigrate him. He has to be careful.



You are not new in this role. In 2015, your role with the Buhari Campaign Organisation is similar to what it is now. What does it mean to you?


At a time, don’t forget that we are just coming up with this alliance between the ACN, CPC, ANPP, a faction of PDP and all of that. So, there was a need to actually market the emergent political party and its candidate. It was in a professional capacity in which I was appointed one of the Public Relations people as it were at that time and we performed the job at the time. Don’t also forget that the country was also very much on the edge, like on the tenterhooks. Everybody was wishing for a change as it were, not just us but nearly everybody in the country. That was it. For me to be in this role performing this job for Tinubu, it is not new to me because I have always done this for him since 1999. So, like a friend of mine told me a few days ago. He said he read that I have taken over my new old role.

Do you think it is the right time for Tinubu to vie for the presidency?

I think it is the best time, not just the best time but the right time. The way the country is today, you don’t need any experimentation going forward. We need someone who has his hands on the plough and never looks back. Someone with the right amount of vision, courage and with the right scope of knowledge to move Nigeria forward. All the other contenders, whether you look at the party or not, you have to look at the driver or who is going to be the driver. That is the most important. You also have to put their qualities on the table. Because none of these candidates have been president before, you have to fall back on their track records of performance when they were in office and when they had opportunities to be in public office. When you put all these qualities on the table, there is no gainsaying the fact that Tinubu stands head and shoulders above any of them.

hisexcellency34:
Dele Alake, Director of Strategic Communication for the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, in this interview on NEWS CENTRAL TV, speaks on why he is marketing Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to Nigerians ahead of the 2023 general elections. TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI who monitored the interview for Daily Independent brings the excerpts:

Why do you think your principal, Tinubu, is being misunderstood by many Nigerians?

I will say he is being misunderstood by only one or two categories of Nigerians, not by Nigerians in general. There are Nigerians who have a sense of history, they do not misconstrue Bola Tinubu because they were aware and still aware of the transformation and leadership that he gave and he continues to give. So, they don’t misconstrue him. Now, there are those who could innocently misconstrue and those are the very young ones who probably were not around 23 years ago when he held sway in Lagos State and implemented all of these transformational initiatives and policies. So, they may be very green.

Then, the second category of those who could misconstrue him is the category of those who deliberately adopts selective amnesia because of envy. They do so because they envy the man’s achievement, his lofty height. What he has been able to do in terms of ideas, vision, knowledge, capacity, courage. He has been able to demonstrate all of these attributes of leadership and naturally, like sugar attracts ants, success attracts envy, especially in our own environment. In Nigeria and Africa, it does. So, those are the categories of people that I will say misconstrue Asiwaju. But for the rest of Nigerians who have a sense of history, who are very honest, thorough and meticulous in their analysis and those who subject issues to critical analysis, they do not misconstrue him at all. In fact, they admire him and they commend his giant strides. Today, where he ruled, all the other candidates, whether Atiku, Obi, Kwankwaso and others that I didn’t mention, all of them have been in public office but there is none of them whose records of performance or antecedents in office matches the enduring legacies of Asiwaju.

Some people have praised Tinubu for headhunting good hands while others said it is just a fluke. What is your take on that?

It can never be a fluke. Let me tell you one thing; only the deep can call to the deep. That is a truism. Nobody can controvert that. You cannot give what you don’t have. You cannot attract brains, experts, professionals and technocrats if you are a dullard, dimwitted or you are dunce. If you are bland, jaded or stale, you cannot attract the best. The headhunting capability of Asiwaju is legendary. Everybody, including his enemy acknowledges that. That means the man is not a pushover. Many years ago when we were still in office, there was a phone-in programme and an old man from Ibadan called and said ‘oh, we know you people are doing well in Lagos because Tinubu has lots of professionals and experts around him and in his cabinet’. I told the man that ‘sir, it only takes the deep to call to the deep. You have to give it to Bola Tinubu. He’s been able to identify talent, put round pegs in round holes’. Don’t forget, it is not just identifying those talents and putting them in their right compartments where their efficiency will be maximized, he is also able to manage them, because management of human beings is the most difficult venture. You can manage machines because at the push of a button, the machine will respond. That is not so with human beings.

News Central TV is a pan-African station and Africans are watching this interview. Africans are asking question why Bola Tinubu who is noted to be a proud African be having strategic meetings outside the continent specifically in Europe?

Again, I have had that being said. I think it speaks to those who condemn such a move. Within their rights, it is their views. When you are in a political, competitive environment, the objective is to win the election. Now, this competitive environment or politics is a game of numbers. So, there will be alignments, realignments, caucuses, interests and various hues and tendencies to negotiate votes in order to swell your ranks and your votes. So, if in the course of ensuring that you attract and negotiate with as many groups or tendencies as possible in order to swell your ranks and increase your votes, one or two of such groups now decide to go and hold their meetings outside the country, would you now say because they are not holding it in your country, you won’t go there? Because you know you are looking for numbers. It’s a game of numbers.

Talking about numbers, Nyesom Wike, love him or hate him, it looks like he is the new bride everybody wants on his side. What can you tell us from the Bola Tinubu camp? Are you making some overtures to the camp of Wike?

Of course, they met. That meant there was a kind of rapprochement that is ongoing there. It is not also limited to Nyesom Wike. Like I told you, this is a game of numbers. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and his ticket must be looking for others to increase the numbers. So, talks are going on. Alignments and realignment negotiations are going on and this will go on necessarily until the day of election. That is the nature of politics and electioneering anywhere in the world.

Is your organisation also making that move within the APC keeping in mind that since after the primaries, there are notable names that have not openly declared support even though we know the campaigns haven’t officially started?

You have mentioned it. The campaign hasn’t started. So, they don’t want to jump the gun. Don’t forget that my principal is a very experienced politician. He is a consummate one. He knows the regulations and he is not in any way about to flout any INEC regulations. So, let the others be going around and flouting, he won’t be, because he is the man to beat. He has to be the most careful of them all because everyone is looking for any straw to claw on with which to denigrate him. He has to be careful.

You are not new in this role. In 2015, your role with the Buhari Campaign Organisation is similar to what it is now. What does it mean to you?

At a time, don’t forget that we are just coming up with this alliance between the ACN, CPC, ANPP, a faction of PDP and all of that. So, there was a need to actually market the emergent political party and its candidate. It was in a professional capacity in which I was appointed one of the Public Relations people as it were at that time and we performed the job at the time. Don’t also forget that the country was also very much on the edge, like on the tenterhooks. Everybody was wishing for a change as it were, not just us but nearly everybody in the country. That was it. For me to be in this role performing this job for Tinubu, it is not new to me because I have always done this for him since 1999. So, like a friend of mine told me a few days ago. He said he read that I have taken over my new old role.

Do you think it is the right time for Tinubu to vie for the presidency?

I think it is the best time, not just the best time but the right time. The way the country is today, you don’t need any experimentation going forward. We need someone who has his hands on the plough and never looks back. Someone with the right amount of vision, courage and with the right scope of knowledge to move Nigeria forward. All the other contenders, whether you look at the party or not, you have to look at the driver or who is going to be the driver. That is the most important. You also have to put their qualities on the table. Because none of these candidates have been president before, you have to fall back on their track records of performance when they were in office and when they had opportunities to be in public office. When you put all these qualities on the table, there is no gainsaying the fact that Tinubu stands head and shoulders above any of them.
https://independent.ng/why-tinubu-has-to-be-the-most-careful-among-presidential-candidates-dele-alake/

Dereformer:
Kwankwaso will perform better than Tinubu in the coming election.

Moslem-Moslem thing destroyed APC

SmartPolician:
This man is talking nonsense.

Which technocrats did Tinubu attract?

Give Dave Umahi, Babagana Zulum or Udom Emmanuel the money Lagos State generates to see what they will turn their states into.

If a state generates over #40 billion per month, even if you make an idiot the governor, there's no way he won't perform.

No Lagos governor did more projects like Fashola because with the withheld Lagos allocation he received from Yar'Adua + IGR, no governor in Nigeria has been able to control such an amount.

franchasofficia:
This is how 2023 Presidential election result will be:

Peter Obi
Southeast - 85%
Southsouth - 67%
Southwest - 35%
Northeast - 18%
Northcentral - 32%
Northwest - 18%


Atiku Abubakar
Southeast - 8%
Southsouth - 25%
Southwest - 14%
Northeast - 38%
Northcentral - 23%
Northwest - 30%



Bola Ahmed Tinubu

Southeast - 3%
Southsouth - 6%
Southwest - 46%
Northeast - 24%
Northcentral - 34%
Northwest - 22%


Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso
Southeast - 1%
Southsouth - 1.5%
Southwest - 3%
Northeast - 19%
Northcentral - 6%
Northwest - 29%

BATified2023:
a