Alhaji Lai Mohammed, a former Minister of information and culture has disclosed how he deployed two-pronged campaign strategy that helped the All Progressives’ Congress (APC) and President Bola Tinubu to win the 2023 elections
Mohammed disclosed this in his recently inaugurated book, “Headlines and Soundbites: Media Moments that Defined an Administration”, which chronicled his experiences as a minister under the late President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
It would be recalled that ahead of the 2023 elections, Buhari had warned ministers, permanent secretaries and heads of government agencies to refrain from abandoning their primary assignments for political campaigns.
The late president who gave the directive
at the end of a two-day 2022 Ministerial Performance Review Retreat in Abuja had warned that any infraction of the order would attract sanctions.
Mohammed, however narrated that, without prejudice to the presidential directive, he deployed campaign strategies, not through rallies or rhetoric, but by defending truth, documenting performance, and ensuring that history was not rewritten by propaganda.
The former minister recalled that ahead of the elections, the prevailing narrative within the opposition was that the APC-led Buhari administration had failed to achieve anything substantial, and thus , nothing warrants the party’s return to power.
He said the opposition figures actively propagated the claim, clearly part of orchestrated campaign, that the ruling APC had no achievements to campaign on.
Mohammed said the assertion, was neither factual nor grounded in reality, but a deliberate strategy to discredit the administration and by extension, the APC and Tinubu ahead of the polls.
“As the popular aphorism goes “Say it loud, say it often, and it longer matters if it’s true”
“Fully aware of the insidious nature of this campaign, I adopted a two pronged strategy: To systematically showcase the administration’s achievements and to decisively counter the opposition misleading narrative.
Exactly 130 days to the general elections, precisely on Oct 18, 2023, my ministry launched the groundbreaking PMB Administration Scorecard Series (2015-2023).
“The goal was to present verified accomplishments of the Buhari administration and shape public perception during a politically-critical period.
“Under the programme, ministers presented concrete, evidence-based reports on their respective sectors.
“Each session includes a robust question and answer segment during which journalists critically interrogated the presentations and sought clarifications,” he wrote.
To ensure maximum visibility, Mohammed said he deployed a comprehensive multi-platform communication strategy leveraging traditional and digital platforms.
The former minister also recalled that on Feb. 22, 2023, just three days before the elections, his ministry unveiled the final set of legacy documentation tools.
The tools, according to him are; a documentary, testimony series, a compendium of PMB Achievements in both print and e-copy and a legacy portal.
Mohammed said the legacy portal was a digital repository, accessible from anywhere in the world, which contained all the presentations at the scorecard series.
NAN
