By Harris Chuma Odili
The stage is set, the dogs are being let loose in batches, they have been charged to go out there and destroy every good will, and human capital currently enjoyed by the waves making Presidential candidate of Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi.
No one goes to war with the Jagaban of Southwest politics with ordinary bear hands. You must be fully armed intellectually, and otherwise; you must be ready to use every media channels known to man. Hear me loud, If you are truly obidient and committed to the noble cause of birthing and berthing a new Nigeria, please let our incoming President’s official media handlers know that they should be proactive.
The Obidient Independent media may not have the right to certain media support services. Any candidates who is serious about defeating Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the polls, should be ready to go to war with Southwest media. That’s the reality on ground. Over the years, Sen Bola Ahmed Tinubu has invested hugely on the media, and have always utilized it to his political benefits.
This time, it is the last fight for Tinubu. Make no mistakes about it, Jagaban is battle ready. He knows that Alhaji Atiku is not a big contender in the presidential race, mark my words, and take it to bank, Tinubu’s biggest fear is Peter Obi. The Southwest political tycoon cannot go to sleep while Peter Obi continues to dominate the media.
Those of us who were privileged to have worked with Southwest media practitioners, and politicians will boldly tell the modus operandi of these political media warriors. The Southeast/Southsouth media should not go to sleep, the media war just begun. You see, any time a seasoned Journalist writes biasedly in favour of a certain politician, there is always a “big budget” behind each story. Please quote me!
Most times, politicians spend millions of naira in funding media wars; damaging stories about their perceived political opponents. Nobody writes for politicians free of charge throughout the length and breadth of Nigeria. In fact, there’s always a huge budget set aside for media wars, cyber-bullying, destructive propaganda and character assassinations. And Sen Bola Ahmed Tinubu is notoriously an expert in political media war. Forget not, how he deployed Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Co, against ex President Goodluck Jonathan, even this writer was deployed severally during the media war against PDP in 2014/15. Tinubu expended about half a million dollar to re-christened President Goodluck Jonathan a “Mr Clueless”.
The Southeast/Southsouth media Practitioners who are Obidient should be encouraged to swing into action, enter the trenches without fear, and ensure their Southwestern counterparts are tamed, timeously. All these comics about “we no dey give shiishii” should be discarded to the bin and allow good sense of reasoning prevail. For the Obidients to win the Lords of the ring, the media influencers and political war Lords should be employed and tactically deployed. I’m aware that Peter Obi’s media team led by Oseloka Obaze, Valentine Obienyem and others are doing great, but they should know that the battle ahead involves all hands-on deck. They need to expand their media reach by creating support structures.
Again, Obidient official media handlers should note that media PR is not all about “blowing” big grammar, Strategic Communication should be deployed effectively towards addressing the contentious, controversial, divisive, sensitive, and thorny issues weaved against Peter Obi’s candidacy, and his laudable ambition.
…Comrade Harris Chuma Odili, PhD, is the DG, Take-Action Group.
