How we marketed Tinubu to Nigerian voters – Onanuga

During this interview, Bayo Onanuga, who formerly served as the Director of Media and Publicity for the Presidential Campaign Council of the All Progressives Congress (APC), takes a trip down memory lane to discuss the various political undercurrents that existed prior to the party primaries. He discusses the factors that allowed him and his team to successfully market Tinubu to Nigerians in this section.

What was it like to be in a position where you could command the messaging for the Asiwaju Tinubu Presidential Campaign?

You are aware that the campaign consisted of two parts: first, there was the campaign for the primary election, and then there was the campaign for the actual election for president.

Asiwaju wanted me to be a part of the organisation so much that he asked me to take the helm at the Media and Publicity Directorate. Since about 1992, we’ve made significant progress. So, I was familiar with him, and he is also familiar with me to a great extent. Because of this, he stated that there is no possibility of a more qualified individual than someone who has been with him for a significant amount of time.

In addition to that, I had the privilege of serving as his Publicity Secretary during his campaign for governor in 1998 and 1999. Therefore, it was a part they had played before. You are aware that in order to sell a brand, you need to have an in-depth familiarity with that brand. So I know him.

Throughout the course of the campaign, our goal throughout both phases was to portray him as a candidate who has a great deal of potential to offer voters. As a result of my interactions with him, I have formed the impression that he is a man who possesses profound knowledge as well as very great ideas. He is a fount of knowledge on a wide variety of subjects.

When you have a conversation with him, he possesses what some people refer to as native intelligence. The manner in which he is able to find solutions to issues truly amazes you, and you find yourself wondering where this man got his start. In addition to other similar matters.

Therefore, the primary objective of our campaign was to convey the idea that our candidate is an extremely creative individual who has served as the governor of Lagos State and overseen an administration that was a huge success there. You should have been aware, if you were in Lagos in 1999, that the city that he inherited was in a complete and utter state of disarray.

Someone from the United States, a woman, was staying with me, and she requested that I take her out. During the course of her tour of Lagos, the first thing she remarked to Mr. Bayo was that the city did not appear to have any road signs. Around the year 2000, this occurred. Remember when I said road signs? Since I moved to Lagos in 1977, I don’t recall ever noticing that there were no road signs in the city. As a result, I went to Governor Bola Tinubu and briefed him on the discovery. Even he was unaware of its existence.

Almost immediately, he dialled the number of the city’s Commissioner of Transport and gave him instructions to initiate the installation of road signs throughout the entire metropolitan area. That was the way in which they began it. That was even an easy one because he pays attention to what others have to say.

When he arrived in Lagos in 1999, there were garbage piles scattered across the city in every direction. He discovered a solution by enlisting the assistance of the private sector. The collection of garbage has evolved into an industry in Lagos, and as a result, thousands of people have found work in the sector. Despite its massive population, Lagos is widely regarded as either the cleanest or one of the cleanest capitals in all of Nigeria.

Then, when it came to the state’s revenue, he would describe to us the difficulties he was having in governing a state that lacked money. He got around the problem by first eliminating unnecessary spending and filling in gaps in the company’s financial reporting, and then by designing a model to boost the internally generated revenue (IGR). Even before Obasanjo seized the money for Lagos councils, he (Tinubu) has been thinking about how to raise money for the Lagos state government. He was successful in raising it, and he established a model that subsequent governors used going forward.

(Babatunde Raji) When Fashola took office, the amount of money brought in increased dramatically. (Akinwunmi) Ambode was elected as governor, and he increased it as well. Today, under the leadership of (Babajide) Sanwo-Olu, Lagos is effortlessly bringing in over N50 billion every single month. This was previously impossible.

The survival of the state is not dependent on receiving money from the federal government. Along with Rivers, Lagos is exempt from the requirement that it wait for allocation from the federal government. Given the pace at which it has grown over the past 24 years, Lagos is now capable of functioning as an independent nation state. It was entirely his brainchild. Because of who he is as a person, he is able to see things that are more difficult for us to see.

Everyone just saw it as Bar Beach, and they come year after year. One example is the concept of saving and developing the Bar Beach, but nobody saw it as doing either of those things. The ocean was approaching, and with its arrival, it would remove the sand along with everything else. And all of a sudden, the beach was no longer in the same place. After that, on an annual basis, the Federal Government started dumping sand into the ocean.

Therefore, he believed that this was a silly plan. Together with his colleagues, he looked for a long-term answer to the problem. The central government at first had doubts about the effectiveness of his efforts. The rest is now part of the past.

The government of Lagos State has not only saved the city of Lagos from the destruction caused by the ocean. In that location, a brand-new city is currently being built. It was entirely his inspiration.

He made an attempt to reorganise the Civil Service. He was responsible for implementing computerization and everything else in the service. He constructed roads that are built to last. I went to him right before he left, somewhere around the year 2006, and asked him what legacy he wanted to leave behind. He told me that he was leaving the following year.

Even though he had already begun to broach the subject of constructing the Blue Line and the rail line, among other things, at that time, nothing concrete had been done. The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system was currently being put into operation. He rummaged through his drawer and pulled out an intricate map of the island of Lagos. He promised that he would redo all of the roads on the island. He did. Julius Berger was awarded the contract by his government, and he completed it before departing, at which point it was turned over to Fashola.

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Fashola carried on with some of Tinubu’s programmes after he took office. As a result of this, Fashola referred to himself as the Actualiser. Lagos kept progressing.

The only issue that ever arose in Lagos was when Ambode was in charge. The Blue Line, for example, has a gap of four years because he didn’t touch it during his tenure, despite the fact that he did a lot of other things. He didn’t continue what Fashola left behind, despite the fact that he did a lot of other things.

Ambode did not pave even an inch of tar on the Lagos-Lekki Road that leads to Epe; instead, he simply abandoned the project. He moved on to work on the town of Epe itself, but he did not develop the road leading into the town. Ambode acted more like a disruptor than anything else, as he slowed down many different processes. If he had persisted, Lagos would have travelled a great distance. Sanwo-Olu is currently working on constructing the Lekki-Epe Road, and he is transforming it from a standard road into a concrete road.

Even though I did not work for the government during the time that Tinubu was governor, I was still able to observe many of the things he did and many of the innovations that he brought to the government. For me, it was not difficult to sell him as a man who has a lot of ideas and as a man who can assist this country in achieving our dreams of a prosperous country. I saw him as someone who could help this country achieve our dreams of a prosperous country.

That’s why I said it was simple for me to support his candidature. I was aware of who he was, I was aware of where he was coming from, and I was aware that he had the potential to contribute significantly to the improvement of this nation.

Anyone who is interested in comprehending Bola Tinubu will need to read the book that he co-wrote and titled “Financialism: Water from an Empty Well.” This book will provide insight into his perspective on the world. He stated that he does not subscribe to the idea that deficit budget is bad when he was speaking to them at the Nigerian Economic Summit Group at the beginning of this year. He stated that it has the potential to be beneficial if it is put to productive use. According to what he said, if you are using it to consume, then it is a compound negative.

Today, there is not a single country anywhere in the world that does not practise deficit budgeting. Is it the United States? The United States of America is the world’s largest debtor nation. The average American owes more money than people in any other country on earth. Despite the large sums of money that Buhari’s political opponents claim he has borrowed, Nigeria has one of the lowest debt levels per capita in all of West Africa.

How were you able to carve out a “political highway” into the North, and achieve a synergy that has ultimately led to the victory of the Asiwaju vision?

Tinubu is an effective leader and politician. Since the year 1992, when he was first elected to the Senate, he has been working tirelessly to forge connections not just to the North, but also to the East, everywhere, and even in the West.

As a Senator, he had a wide network of friends all over the country; this is why, after the events of June 12 were overturned, he was one of the members of the National Assembly who were taken into custody. It was he who was responsible for organising a number of legislators from different parts of the country to participate in the protest against the annulment. After realising that his life was in danger, he and his family fled the country.

After that, in his early days as a politician, he was a member of the Primrose Group in Lagos. This was during his time in Lagos. (Gen. Shehu) Yar’Adua’s victory over (Lateef Kayode) Jakande in the primary competition for the former Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Lagos was made possible by the efforts of this group. Additionally, he was a supporter of Dapo Sarumi for governor prior to the cancellation of that primary election by the Babangida government. Even when he was governor, he maintained friendships with people of all political stripes. Some of them were members of the PDP, while others belonged to the ANPP, and so on.

And during the time that Shehu Musa Yar’Adua was one of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) or the Peoples Front (PF), they were close. That was how he became acquainted with Abubakar Atiku and a great many other people. In point of fact, a significant number of the people he had known since 1992 are still in his life up to the present day. He benefited greatly from maintaining those friendships and acquaintances. When compared to the class of governors who served from 1999 to 2007, the majority of his contemporaries have faded into obscurity, but he has retained his relevance in the political world. People have completely forgotten about the others as if they had never existed, leaving him as the only one who is still around. He is the only politician who is still relevant today because he is constantly working to improve his politics, is continually expanding the boundaries of his politics, and has friends dispersed across the country.

In addition to this, he is very daring. When others are afraid to try something, he encourages them to do it with him. You probably remember that after the elections in 2003, he was the only governor in the South West who was still in office. However, he did not suggest that because he was the only one left, he should give up immediately. Instead, he made the decision to run for office again in 2007 and campaign for all of those other positions.

When candidates from his party were unfairly eliminated from the race, he came up with a novel method of demonstrating election fraud: forensic analysis of ballots. The novelty demonstrated that a significant number of the thumbprints on the ballots were either from palm nuts or were the work of a small number of individuals. In addition, the investigation revealed that the voters’ register included some peculiar names.

Because of this, he was able to assist candidates for both the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Labour Party in recovering stolen mandates.

Over the course of his career, he has demonstrated that he is not merely an average politician but rather a courageous politician. In addition to that, he is a fighter.

For example, he brought Enron into the conversation. The Lagos State government was expecting Enron to produce electricity at no expense to the state government. The state’s only responsibility was to make room for the barges coming from the Philippines; that was all that was required of them. It was very possible that the Federal Government would sabotage the effort. Even though most of the population lacked access to electricity, the government officials were busy reciting laws that prevented certain states from producing their own electricity. He was successful in convincing government officials to change their minds and allow the project to move forward, but only on the condition that Lagos pay a portion of the overall cost of the power that will be supplied to the national grid.

Because he was considering the situation as a whole, he gave his assent to picking up the bill. In addition to the initial 270 megawatts (MW), Enron intended to generate a greater quantity of power for Nigeria. Unfortunately, Enron’s own operations in the United States ran into financial difficulties. It was determined that they were bankrupt.

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However, for a number of years prior to Yar’Adua’s election, Lagos State was responsible for paying the additional fees that Enron was charging. However, Lagos did not make direct use of the power because it was instead fed into the national grid. In an effort to hold the Federal Government accountable for some of its unlawful actions, the Lagos State Government filed a lawsuit against it. His state was successful in the majority of the cases.

Accordingly, these are the aspects that contributed to the formation of his reputation as a fighter and a constitutionalist. As a politician, he maintains the view that we are obligated to play by the rules and that the states ought to have at least some level of independence from the oppressive federal government.

Speaking specifically of his battles within the APC, there was an ongoing campaign to separate the party structure from him, which resulted in the dismissal of the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC), which was thought to be loyal to him. This was the culmination of this campaign. Do you have any idea how he managed to get past all of those little obstacles?

Those individuals who were behaving in such a manner were unknown to him. As I was saying, this man is responsible for building bridges all over the country. He has a huge circle of friends, some of whom keep to themselves but are aware of the ways in which they are connected to him.

Even after they removed Oshiomhole as chairman of the party and fired the NWC, the people who took control of the party were not people he had never met before. Keep in mind that there were some people who thought he would be eliminated from the primary election screening process for the party. People speculated that the chairman of the screening panel, Chief John Odigie Oyegun, would rule against him in the election. It appears that Oyegun’s decision did not prevent him from going there.

Again, they believed the governors were going to disown him or betray him, but when he ran in the primary, he won handily because, contrary to what they believed, the governors supported him. It was time for some of the governors to pay him back for the assistance he had provided to them in their time of need.

Abdullahi Umar Ganduje and Aminu Masari gave Tinubu a solid support. Therefore, it should not have come as a surprise that he won the primary election by a significant margin.

It appeared as though it was all over for Asiwaju prior to the primary, particularly the meeting that took place on June 4. The residence of Osoba served as the location for the South West Caucus meeting. How did he get past that obstacle, given that it was widely anticipated that Osinbajo would refuse to step down from his position?

The South West was significantly more concerned about presenting a unified front at the primary election. At the time you are referring to, Amosun, Osinbajo, Fayemi, Borofice, and Dimeji Bankole were all candidates for the position you are discussing. Fayemi was also a candidate. Therefore, the concern was expressed as follows: since there are many of you, proceed there as a unified front. This was a problem for Osoba, Baba Akande, and others like them as well. Therefore, the purpose of it was to ensure that the South West presented a unified front.

Osoba and Akande were on Asiwaju’s side, and they wanted others, particularly Osinbajo, to understand why they should be on his side as well. Osinbajo refused. You were there, so you know what went down on the pitch.

It was said that he spent money, but those claims are completely untrue. There isn’t a single politician who doesn’t waste taxpayer dollars. Even Osinbajo spent money; he was the one who gave money to politicians. Tinubu, on the other hand, was the clear winner because the politicians were aware of their true preferences and voted accordingly.

How did you respond when there was negative press?

Both Dele Alake and I are members of the journalism profession. The negative press was primarily generated by Nduka Obaigbena’s Arise TV and ThisDay, as well as originating from a specific section of the press. As a result, we were required to engage in combat in order to demonstrate not only their hypocrisy but also the fact that they were being financially supported to campaign against our candidate. They did not completely retreat, but at least they moderated their stance a little bit.

The thing that we kept doing throughout the whole process was selling him as a candidate who is capable of really turning this country around and has the ideas to do so. That was the message that we kept relaying, that he had done something similar in the past. He is capable of doing it again.

When Obi served as governor, in what ways was he superior to Bola Tinubu? I will say that they governed two states that were very similar. There was Anambra, which was located on the Niger River’s bank. If the governor of Anambra had been more forward-thinking and analytical, the state could have benefited from having a river port.

It is in the state of Anambra, which may have the highest concentration of billionaires in the entire country, that any governor will have the opportunity to say to the billionaire community, “Billionaires, come here; let’s make our state into something bigger than what it is.” However, he didn’t engage in all of those activities until after he had left Awka. In point of fact, the story that Obi had left Awka as a village was published in The Guardian. It was a village when he arrived, and it was a village when he left. And only a few years later, people were now telling us that a man who had been unsuccessful in Anambra would make an excellent president of Nigeria. It was out of control.

Our argument was that our candidate came to Lagos with a mountain of refuse, with low revenue, and with poor infrastructure, and he left it significantly better than he found it. Even a continuity blueprint was left behind by him. It is abundantly clear that our candidate is far superior to the candidates, Obi and Atiku, that they were trying to sell us. This was the message that we insisted on spreading.

However, towards the end of the campaign, both the introduction of the Naira swap and the scarcity of fuel nearly caused the campaign to fail. It was abundantly clear that the Naira swap, which occurred at a time when there was a currency shortage across the entirety of the country, was directed at him in order to foster profound animosity towards the party in power, the APC.

At one point, he was so concerned about the plight of our people that he considered withdrawing from the race in order to allow Emefiele and his co-conspirators to provide some relief to our people. He did this because he was so concerned about the plight of our people. It was incomprehensible and unthinkable that a party in power would propose changing the currency with only a few weeks left until the election. It came at such an inopportune time; it was a very pointless programme that further impoverished the less fortunate people.

The exchange of currencies resulted in a loss of capital for Nigeria’s already impoverished population. You discover that those who were selling pepper and fruits were unable to find buyers for their wares. Without customers, the goods went bad and were thrown away. When I was in Lagos, there was one day when I pumped each of my tyres for N1,000. As a result, the amount of money was raised from N200 to N1000 for each. People who were already poor were made even poorer.

Therefore, the two policies that were implemented during that time made our population hate the APC even more. There was a good chance that we would not win the election because the odds were stacked against us. Tinubu, on the other hand, was successful because people had faith in his track record. The electorate has faith in this individual’s capacity to effect change. They are of the opinion that he is qualified to serve as president.

In Lagos, one of the reasons we came so close to winning the state but ultimately fell short was due to the fact that we did not even have enough money to pay our party agents. Therefore, those affiliated with Labour had a field day. There is no doubt that God played a role in determining the winner of that election. We were under the impression that we would receive three million votes in Lagos, but we were ultimately unsuccessful there. We prevailed in Benue, a state in which we believed the governor, Samuel Ortom, had given the state to the Labour Party. Ortom stated that he was willing to give up his seat in the Senate in order to support Labour, but he was unsuccessful in doing so. At the end of the day, his candidate did not succeed in winning the state.

The victory of Tinubu was predetermined by God. It was God who caused the PDP to splinter, which resulted in the party entering the election factionalized as G-5, with Kwankwaso in Kano and Obi in the South East. How was it even possible for Atiku to win the election?

Atiku was only counting on votes from the north, but unfortunately for him, the PDP does not control the majority of the states in the north of his home region. Even in Sokoto, which he asserts to have won, he defeated us by a razor-thin margin. It was exactly the same in the state of Katsina. Even though Atiku won the Kebbi election, we were still able to secure 25% of the vote. Tinubu’s success could be explained by following a series of logical steps. Where he did not even win outright, he either came in second place, and sometimes he came very close to coming in second place.

How did you react when you heard the negative feedback about the letter you wrote to NBC, which resulted in Channels being penalised, and when people suggested that NBC had taken dictation from you?

This was not the case at all. Before our letter was even delivered, the NBC had already taken the necessary disciplinary action. The reprimand was not issued as a result of our letter. It occurred after the act in question. The individuals who were attacking me had their facts completely wrong.

This was not the first letter that we had written. Both Channels and Arise were acting inappropriately. Before, we had reason to send a letter to NBC in which we lodged a complaint about the professional infractions that were being committed by the stations.

You have to understand that, in contrast to the print media, the electronic media is better governed; these outlets have rules, and it was precisely these rules that we insisted they adhere to.

On television, there are some behaviours that are strictly prohibited. You are not supposed to allow a man to speak on your station if he has been saying things that Nigerians ought to go out and riot, and you have a guest who has been saying those things. You are supposed to say no, don’t say that on air, and you are either supposed to take him off the air or you are supposed to do something to show that he can’t say those things on the air. It is a violation of the rules that govern the transmission of radio and television signals.

When we requested that NBC, in accordance with the rules, sanction Channels for the interview that Datti Ahmed had given, we did not engage in any unethical or improper behaviour. Get on over there and hear that interview! The best thing that Seun could have done in this situation would have been to cut the man off air and tell him to stop talking trash. How can it be that the man is suggesting that the Supreme Court should follow his dictate, that the winner of the election should not be sworn in, and all of that other nonsense?

The interview took place at a time when the LP had just informed the world that they are submitting a case in court; once you submit a case in court, why do you go again talking about it? It was nothing more than pure blackmail.

Take a look at the actions being taken by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC). How are you able to say that you, along with a few non-governmental organisations, are going to establish a register to embarrass judges? The NLC is the owner of the Labour Party, but if you look back through all of the election cycles, you’ll notice that the NLC makes an effort to maintain some distance from the party. However, in 2023, they joined the Labour Party as members. The NLC and TUC are representative of all Nigerian workers, including those who are affiliated with other parties.

Under Bola Tinubu’s presidency, I have no doubt that they will run into a number of challenges. How will Mr. Joe Ajaero and the TUC man be able to say that they are negotiating on behalf of Nigerian workers when confronted by a team led by Bola Tinubu? Who are these labourers? Workers in the Labour Party? They are going to run into difficulties due to the fact that they are already partisan; in other words, they are politicians. Therefore, I am not sure how they are going to get themselves out of this predicament.

What part did research play in the formulation of your messaging, given that we observed successful campaign messaging? I’m curious about the depth of the research that went into it.

If you check the majority of the things that we have published, you will see that we typically make an effort to at least dig deeper rather than simply write something. This allows us to check our facts and ensure that whatever it is that we plan to write is founded on facts. That is something that we frequently do.

We collaborated on this project; therefore, I won’t just make a statement sitting at my desk. There is a certain tier of people who we collaborate with. They create a draught, which they then send to me; once I’ve read it, I’ll send it on to some other individuals. They will offer some recommendations. Consequently, we conducted our business in this manner.

Occasionally, we will check it ourselves and then ask the candidate, “Is that what you want us to push out?” Sometimes he will tell you not to do this, not to mess around with this, and to just leave them alone.

When they asked Ngige on television whether or not he supported Bola Tinubu, there was a time when we wanted to launch an assault against him. And he was unable to say either yes or no, and we said that this individual will not be a good party man, and we also said that you are a member of the APC and that you work in the APC government, but you are unable to come out and say that yes, he is our candidate and that we are supporting him.

At that time, we decided that we ought to at the very least try to reprimand him for the position that he had taken in public. When we questioned Tinubu, he advised us to not interfere with Chris’s life.

Can you, as someone who has spent a significant amount of time in Asiwaju Tinubu’s company, provide Nigerians with a glimpse into his meetings with the federal executive council? Also, the relationship between the executive and legislative branches?

He supports democratic ideals. Naturally, I have no doubt that he will request that anyone who is bringing a memo to the council to have done a significant amount of research.