₦airaland Forum

With the emergence of Prof/Pst Yemi Osinbajo as Gen. Buhari's running mate, a very effective check was put on Jonathanian allegations of religious bias in APC...so the game changed.

Now, if President Jonathan's supporters want to win more converts online and on-ground, they'd better start de-emphasizing the religious angle and start talking other more useful things.

Conspiracy theories, some of which have the ring of truth around them, won't also fly in this election. The availability of nearly instant info via a myriad of sources online has made conspiracy theories less and less effective as a propaganda weapon. Jonathanians had better deploy the huge resources of state at their disposal to dig up REAL, TRUE facts about the General (and those around him) or just shut up and quit making a fool of themselves by slinging around unfounded and sometimes confounded theories. If there are videos, news articles or dossiers, show us the FACTS and quit making puerile insinuations.

Also, the non-availability of vital documents like the KPMG audit report of the NNPC following the 'missing $20bn' allegation will be a dampener to the efforts of Jonathanians to extricate the man from corruption. If una know where dat report dey, make una go find am o...or else, in the minds of the electorate, $20bn (or is it $10b or $12bn) may actually be missing!

Another area Jonathan's campaign team and his supporters need to work on is in disseminating news of projects done by his administration. It's obvious that a great deal has been done by between 2011 and 2015...compiling and disseminating these achievements in a credible compendium (video, text, audio) shouldn't be too difficult for a party that has N21bn in its campaign kitty. Except of course, the N21bn is for private pockets...(Any surprise?)

Lastly, Jonathan himself should start talking to Nigerians directly. Being media-shy and elusive to journalists simply creates a vacuum and since nature abhors vacuums, wrong images of your person is bound to grow in the minds of the electorate. When you don't seize media opportunities (even of 3-5 minutes) to sell yourself and grow your image positively in the media, you leave the opposition the free space to first insinuate, then impose a negative image of you on the minds of those who will vote for you.

An adjunct to the need to be more in the public eye is the need to appear on presidential election debates. To the best of my knowledge, Jonathan dodged the 2011 debates but it will be a huge disaster for him to fail to appear in 2015. It's even difficult to understand why he should be running away from debating a candidate whose knowledge of issues is obviously very limited.

Lastly and generally, it's my opinion that President's Jonathan's media team is the dullest and most unimaginative media team of any incumbent political candidate I've seen or heard of in modern times. It just seems his PR people have become so sated and swollen with ill-booty that their brains have refused to be innovative in devising new ways of reaching and impressing the electorate with the virtues of their principal.

Relying on a much-eroded factor of incumbency, these PR beatniks in the Presidency and his party, the PDP, have completely surrendered the media space to the rampaging APC propaganda machinery and have been relegated to the background to play catch-up and merely react to the opposition's numerous media victories.

If President Jonathan wants to win this election, his media team must overhaul their culture of being lamely reactive to becoming aggressively proactive. Let me add, if President Jonathan loses this election, his media team of mediocre s should be held squarely responsible.

Ok

lets have a little media vote
Hit like for Buhari, Share for Jonathan

This is the best piece of advise GEJ will ever get in his term in Aso rock. But the problem with GEJ and his supporters is that they see every sincere piece of advise as rantings of an enemy, its the reason why the incumbent is playing catch up to his main challenger for the first time ever in the history of democracy in Nigeria.

if Buhari loses this election no one will be blamed cos he is already a serial loser

An intelligent post, GEJ PR really need to be innovative and base their campaigns on matters that would appeal to muslims, christians, westerners, northerners, easterners and southerners.

Also his supporters in nairaland should do same.

As a supporter of Buhari who likes to see a change in government, I pray they don't even heed your advice because I cannot imagine another four years of Nigeria in the hands of this heartless PDP.

you cant sell bullshiit, even if packaged in golden foil, because it stinks from afar.

Spot on!

emiye:
you cant sell bullshiit, even if packaged in golden foil, because it stinks from afar.

Steve Jobs could sell bulllshit to anyone in an aluminium foil, believe that. It is all about branding and apparently, the Jonathan campaign handlers are doing a terrible job of branding his candidacy. Their relentless attacks even make more people sympathetic to the General.

It is just like having to advice one's child CONSTANTLY to be wary of some bad boy and NEVER to get close to him, that he's a devil in disguise. The more you keep drumming it into her ears how dangerous the said dude is, the stronger your daughter's resolve to want to get into bed with the dude. Jonathanians simply don't understand this principle!

omenka:
Steve Jobs could sell bulllshit to anyone in an aluminium foil, believe that. It is all about branding and apparently, the Jonathan campaign handlers are doing a terrible job of branding his candidacy. Their relentless attacks even make more people sympathetic to the General.

It is just like having to advice one's child CONSTANTLY to be wary of some bad body and NEVER to get close to him, that he's a devil in disguise. The more you keep drumming it into her ears how dangerous the said dude is, the stronger your daughter's resolve to want to get into bed with the dude. Jonathanians simply don't understand this principle!

That's hypocritical