BEFORE and during his 2023 presidential campaign in the North, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was a household name among the ordinary citizens in the North. Now, President Tinubu’s public relations (PR) image in the North is fast dwindling; the Christian community is still bitter with the All Progressives Congress’s (APC) Muslim-Muslim ticket in the 2023 presidential elections, and the Muslim majority is feeling sidelined in the Tinubu government despite their massive vote for the APC during the 2023 presidential elections. The Tinubu government has some of the best minds in public relations (PR) and the media space in its media team, but the truth of the matter is that Tinubu’s PR image in the North is dwindling and suffering, so to speak. What went wrong?
First, to be fair to Tinubu, he has allocated some good positions to the north according to its ‘rights’, but it was poorly communicated, and the appointees are in a kind of incommunicado with the north. Secondly, many people even outside the north felt that the southwest has taken most of the ‘lucrative posts’—well, it is normal for any president to bring onboard his own economic teams, including the people that he knows too well and has confidence in them to deliver his agenda and his party’s manifestos. Tinubu has the right to appoint anyone he wishes to, but unlucky for him, his predecessor’s actions and inactions will be used to gauge his government’s actions and inactions. President Tinubu couldn’t have jettisoned a little bit of this privilege—the idea of appointing only the people he knows too well in his economic team and close aides—since he succeeded a Buhari government that was highly accused of nepotism. Thirdly, the Tinubu government’s interaction with the North appears limited to the high echelon of society. Thus, the people at the bottom of the ladder who were told that the Muslim-Muslim ticket would be ‘their government’ now feel they’re sidelined and were misled.
Fourthly, the Tinubu media and public relations teams are good, but they’re disconnected from the real North; they are not sufficiently aware of the approach and ‘language’ to talk to the north, especially APC’s strongholds. A good example is the recent CBN’s lifting of FOREX restrictions on 43 items. The general belief in the North is that the government has opened the borders for rice, maize, and other farm produce; thus, it is a direct attack on northern farmers and rice mills in the north. Up until now, there is no explicit explanation in a language, and from the ‘faces’ the northern farmers and rice millers will understand and believe. Lastly, the Tinubu government is missing one point: it basically campaigned in its strongholds in the North on the fulcrum of the Muslim-Muslim ticket. Now, its body language is that it has tilted away from the North’s political and economic interests. Thus, even the ulamas ( the clergies) who ‘campaigned’ for it, are now not talking on its behalf; in fact, many of them are hammering the government. The Muslim-Muslim ticket is like an albrotorus to the APC, which the party must carry till and after the 2027 presidential elections; it has to continue to ‘nurture’ it like a nursing baby and also, at the same time, prove to its opponents that there is no harm in it.
What Tinubu should do: his subsequent appointments and policy pronouncements should try to pacify the north, especially the APC’s strongholds. Politics is about reward systems, and Tinubu is a master of reward systems in politics. Secondly, appointees from the north should be visible and reachable to their communities. Many people in the APC’s strongholds in the north don’t even know some people from their folds are now appointees in the Tinubu government. Thirdly, as earlier said, the Tinubu PR and Media team is good, but it must still be jack-up with more people from the north who know the ‘language’ and have the faces that the north will understand.
Lastly, and most importantly, the Tinubu government should constantly inform the North of its efforts and activities in the areas of security, agriculture, and youth programmes in a way and in a language the North will understand and appreciate.
Zayyad writes in from Abuja and be reached via zaymohd@yahoo.com
