The rumours of President Muhammadu Buhari's death has left many people restless with many questions begging for answers.
President Muhammadu Buhari
Aides of President Muhammadu Buhari are sore bitter over rumours
that their principal may have passed away in London while on holiday
which they announced to us a little over one week ago.
Information Minister, Lai Mohammed cut the image of a stunned
child, hurting from a vicious spanking from an otherwise doting mother.
The vehemence with which originators of the fake news penetrated
the country made Mohammed momentarily forget that the president is
actually a darling of a majority of Nigerians. He went on an unnecessary
vilification of the people suggesting that they were legendary at
wishing evil for their leaders. He put a cap on defaming Nigerians, by
threatening that government will deal with anyone caught in the act.
And I ask the question, how many people have been caught yet?
Of course none. And that does not come as a surprise. This fake
news was spearheaded by faceless online publications that are
untraceable! And I am wondering how else you expect any people, be they
white, yellow or black to react to such news, at least until they can
ascertain its veracity.
Now, do the people who originated the story really want the
President dead? Most likely no. Everyone who has some access to the
internet these days explores the opportunity to make a quick buck,
become popular or even just cause some mischief. And they really do not
have to be Nigerians or resident in Nigeria. So, disparaging Nigerians
as the minister did is, to say the least, unbecoming.
But let us even look at how the presidency may have incentivised the rumour.
The President wakes up on a particular morning, writes a letter to
the Senate, informing it of his plan to go on vacation for ten days,
tweets at his followers about his sudden decision, and is gone out of
the country within 12 hours of the commencement of the gist. What
happened to that tradition of issuing a statement a few days before the
event?
The defence here could be that it is the President’s prerogative to
release information when and as he likes but I disagree. The man is now
the leader of a big, diverse country and he is accountable to the
people.
If government, however, insists that he is entitled to giving such
short notices about his intention to take a vacation, it should rest
assured of tendencies that he will have to deal with an assortment of
speculations generated by the fertile mind of 180m people sent into
overdrive by a government that takes the business of communication with
levity.
Then for a president who departs the country in what looks like a
hurry and does not appear in public for the next 48 hours or so, people
are sure to imagine things.
The two pictures of the president released by his media team have
also not helped matters. In both pictures you see the president sitting
down without any activity and I am wondering how the fact that people
are visiting him dispel rumours that he is seriously ill.
This is where the media management team of the President has to
come off its high horse. I have read stories about how people cannot
compel the president to speak to them as a means of dispelling rumours
of his good health and I still don’t believe anyone would say that.
In countries where the government has any iota of respect for the
people; the president would be in a hurry to reassure. But government
officials in Nigeria already see the people as their enemy who can be
mistreated. This is the origin of all mistrust between the government
and the governed and at the end of it all; those who are in office lose.
Essential to good governance is the effective management of
information, of issues and of crises when they surface. The bungling of
these accounts for the breakdown of confidence between Nigerians and
their leaders. Unless handlers of our leaders understand that nothing
takes care of a reputational crisis like access to information and total
openness, they will continue to get frustrated by what would be the
standard reaction of all normal human beings.
As Abimbola Adelakun concluded in her column in The PUNCH late last week, “it is nothing personal.”
- by Niran Adedokun
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