Inside Tinubu’s media campaign team
By Ali Smarts
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 general elections easily describes himself as a strategist and that is what he truly is.
That shows in virtually all he does and it is not amiss even in the way and manner he has carefully chosen his media campaign team which parades some of the best and brightest brains you can ever find around in the pen-pushing and other allied professions.
A cursory review of the assemblage of stars in Tinubu’s media campaign team includes the old war horses like Mr. Dele Alake, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, Dr. Danladi Bako, etal to the fire spitting, hard-hitting bogeymen in the likes of Femi Fani-Kayode, Festus Keyamo, Kasim Afegbua, and not forgetting the statistics wizard and whiz kid, Ajuri Ngelale who literally crunches numbers like biscuits.
We have other badass writers like Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, Hannatu Musawa, Kehinde Bamigbetan, etal, not forgetting the likes of Modibbo Kawu, Mohammed Bulama, Seun Olufemi-White, and many more who operate online and offline churning out reports after reports either in form of agenda-setting, rebuttals, ripostes, and sometimes just going on a charmed offensive as the case may be in order to respond to false narratives, traducers, fifth columnists, to mention just a few.
So, in a sense, Tinubu have got a lot of people literally watching his back out there, especially within the public sphere including the mainstream, social media and whose specific job description is to ensure a counterpoise, address the issue of bad press or badvocacy, bellyaching, badmouthing and all the negative expletives common during campaign hustings, especially around here.
Indeed, the media campaign structure driving the Tinubu presidency is such that has made the job of media-minding a walk in the park because these are guys adequately schooled on the job.
Unlike other candidates with a ragtag contraption who operate as media managers, Tinubu parades a team of intelligentsia who are schooled in the art of diplomatese, legalese, officialese.
Of course, that’s not all. There are amongst these lots too those who have got really caustic tongues and a sizeable few who understand the art of war, propaganda, warts and all! In fact, these are not sissys or mummy’s crybabies who will run home to mama once they are hurt. No. These guys can take as much punch as they can give themselves.
Expectedly, anyone who as much as crosses their paths cannot withstand or sustain the attacks for much longer as the examples of Arise TV and ThisDay have shown. When the television station and the newspaper, both two major stables under Prince Nduka Obaigbena’s media empire began what observers described as orchestrated campaigns of calumny against Tinubu they got their comeuppances as the Tinubu media campaign team unleashed some of the most lethal, acerbic responses to whittle down their influence before a truce was reached.
To cap it all, Tinubu in the process, ended poaching one of the staff on Obaigbena’s employ, Mahmud Jega, who until his appointment was an in-house analyst for Arise TV and ran a weekly column for ThisDay newspaper.
Are you still in doubt as to whether Tinubu is a master strategist? Indeed, only a master strategist can see the future even 20 years from now. Little wonder Tinubu worked in earnest to court the media, investing his time and resources because he has always believed in the power of the media to shape thoughts and opinions.
As noted in a similar report, under the caption, ‘How MMM is working for Tinubu’, Tinubu sure knows the true essence of having a strong media component to drive his political ideas and ideals and that has largely informed the quantum of investment he has made within that critical sector thus far, especially within the past three decades or so. Thankfully, these investment decisions have continued to pay heavy dividends since the days of the military junta and especially during the return to democratic rule in 1999 till date.
All said, if the character and form of the Tinubu media campaign is anything to go by, it is correct to say that if push comes to shove and there is need to engage in media warfare of any kind, no other candidate can match Jagaban’s formidable team ever!
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