What is innovative about this contract is that all the activities of changing the narrative about governance in Nigeria are to be done from K Street in Washington
With several years of aggressive cultivation of the Nigerian diaspora by the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, it is reasonable for value-added Nigerians in the United States to feel unsettled by the recent announcement in Abuja of a multimillion-dollar contract to a Washington public relations or lobby agency.
The federal government’s decision to hire a Washington-based lobby group to burnish its image from Washington to the rest of the globe must have meant a major loss to local professional public relations firms, lobby agencies, and savvy advocacy groups, the type that have been beating the drum of President Jonathan’s re-election bid, even when the president remains reluctant to announce his entry into the race. For a meagre sum of 275 million naira per annum, Levick Strategic Communications has been hired to lead other subcontractors to assist in promoting “transparency, democracy, and the rule of law throughout Nigeria.” More specifically, Levick is to assist Nigerian government’s efforts to mobilise international support in fighting Boko Haram as part of the greater global war on terror.
What is innovative about this contract is that all the activities of changing the narrative about governance in Nigeria are to be done from K Street in Washington. The public relations game changer for Nigeria is not working just to spread good messages about Nigeria’s governance in the Western hemisphere but also to spread new narratives about governance in the country to citizens at home. From now on, strategising about consolidating and enhancing the culture of democracy in Nigeria will be determined and directed by sophisticated lobbyists in Washington. And this company will also be responsible for conveying messages of Nigeria’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law to all the corners of the world.
Nigerians in diaspora in the United States must wonder what led a government with which the Nigerian Diaspora Association has a robust relationship of cordiality to jump over them to give such a juicy contract to foreigners. Public communication professionals among them (and they are legion) must marvel why the loss of homeland PR firms in Lagos and Abuja has not been allowed to become the gain of Nigerian public professionals in diaspora. Those Nigerians abroad who are not savvy about the workings of power are likely to feel betrayed or cheated by a federal government that had organised conferences and seminars in Atlanta, New York, Washington, and other U.S. cities on how to create synergy between the country and its diaspora.
On their own part, Nigerians at home must be astonished by this contract, especially the objective of assisting the government to promote transparency, democracy, and the rule of law throughout Nigeria. Is the local media narrative not already doing that and very aggressively too? Without doubt, some segments of the media created and operated solely to do panegyric journalism has done so much of that and very well too. But there are other media houses across the country that are mordantly critical of threats to transparency, democracy, and the rule of law in the country. Similarly, top public relations firms within the country must be puzzled about new pro-democracy narratives that Washington spin doctors have been hired to create and propagate all over the wide world.
With respect to the charge to Levick to assist the federal government’s efforts to find and safely return the abducted Chibok girls, those who observed the activities and pronouncements of Malala during her recent visit to Abuja must wonder why the country would need a special contract to do what Malala had chosen to do pro bono for the country. Malala may not be an image manipulator, she is without doubt the world’s most admired symbol of anti-terrorism. She is more likely to assist the government in this respect at no cost to a government that is already too stretched financially to the point of seeking one billion dollar loan from the international community, even if on Shylockean terms. With her pronouncements during a recent visit to Aso Rock, Malala appears to be in the best of positions to talk to the international community about the readiness of the government in Abuja to find and bring the Chibok girls to safety, more so after the government’s announcement that it knows where the girls are and is only working on the best time to emancipate them from their captors.
It is not clear in media reports when the project to hire K Street’s image makers was conceived. Was it before or after the government discovered where the girls are kept by the terrorists? Given the assurance by the federal government that all its security agencies know the location of the Chibok girls, one part of the project seems to have been accomplished, even before signing the contract with Levick. The second part, bringing the girls home safely, looks less of political advocacy Washington style, than military strategic thinking and attention to tactical details that are needed for the job of liberation of innocent school girls from the den of terrorists. If there is need for special assistance, is it not more reasonable to approach the many countries that have already sent representatives to the country to show their commitment to assist Nigeria in the liberation of the girls and termination of Boko Haram’s terror, especially after the U.S. government has undertaken to train our security forces in strategies and tactics of fighting terrorism?
The federal government may have found one new friend on account of the contract given to Levick. It certainly has lost many friends at home and abroad. It has made it known to the entire world that it does not believe in the professional know-how of thousands of public relations specialists within Nigeria and among its diasporic communities in the western world. It is an irony that at a time the federal government is committed to transformation of the job market to create jobs at home, it is also creating jobs for public relations workers in the United States, a major aid giver to Nigeria on many fronts.
It should not surprise anyone if the federal government chooses to hire another lobby group to work on the message of dis-alienating competent Nigerian public relations men and women at home and abroad that its offer of contract to Levick’s Strategic Communications for millions of dollars per annum had insulted and alienated. This should be the time for the government to go into its archives to remind itself of the methods used by late Dora Akunyuli to re-brand Nigeria during the presidency of UmaruYar’Adua.
