Domesticating Our Presidential Campaign.

In the last Nigerian Presidential Election, it was widely reported that the APC/Buhari Campaign Team hired a celebrated American election guru to lecture Candidate Buhari on how to avoid falling a victim of transcultural indoctrination by wearing ill-fitting suits, as well as Ndigbo and Niger-Delta traditional attire. I do not think Awo, Zik, or Balewa would have succumbed to that multicultural fraud in the cause of marketing their electability and national appeals. It demeans our sense of values and our democratic process. You don't need to wear my traditional attire to prove to me that you are an Esan man, as equal as the Yoruba man, the Kanuri man, the Hausa/Fulani man, or the Ndigbo in the allocation of federal power and positions.  How many Ishan guys or ladies do you have in your Aso Rock? That's the benchmark.

And just a few days ago, Senator Ojudu Babafemi reported on his Wall the story and picture of a foreign-looking Social Media aficionado allegedly hired by the Atiku/Obi Campaign Team to manage their online presence. I want to pretend that isn't true. 

The Atiku/Obi Presidential Campaign Organisation has a plethora of ready-made and readily available materials to harness and deploy for the dethronement of the incumbent.  The fact that APC went overseas in the last election to search for a Presidential Election Campaign Strategist does not provide a cover for the alleged globe-trotting of the Atiku/Obi Team. 

It wasn't by accident that Mr. Mark Zuckerberg chose Lagos, Nigeria, as his first port of call in the Developing World. It was because of our powerful and domineering presence on social media. The powerful presence isn't consultant-made, but by our total embrace of the nuts and bolts that the internet has to offer. As a people, yes indeed, we are telecom savvy.

The truth is, going overseas for consultants wasn't Buhari or Osinbajo's decision, but that of their handlers. And I have no doubt in my mind that the emerging news of the alleged foreign foray by the Atiku/Obi Ticket is the handiwork of their handlers. In both cases, it is easy to draw a similar conclusion: the inadequacies of all the President Men in managing their candidates. In other words, if the materials are "white and foreign package", they are taken as God sent. Wrong, guys, wrong.

The Obama Campaign Team didn't go about hiring foreign consultants or spying eyes to win two Presidential elections. Instead, they focused on domestic commentators and analysts for useful materials on the ground. And if you think that wasn't smart, just take a look at how reliance on Cambridge Analytica and Russian undercover operatives in the last U.S. Presidential election is unmaking the Trump Presidency. 

Zamfara State is in turmoil. Sokoto and Katsina States are playing host to foreign armed bandits, terrorising and confiscating the natives of their goods and herds for failing to pay a ransom. Borno State, the hotbed of the Boko Haram sect, is almost 75% under the control of the sect. He reneges on the  N5000.00 monthly stipend his party promised unemployed Nigerian youths. And without consultation with his own party, he informed Nigerians in his 2018 New Year address that Restructuring is not a reality. What else do you want?

You're wrong to go foreign. You must start trusting Nigerians.