Every election year comes with certain blues, mostly coated in hilarious garbs. We have seen politicians go to the streets dancing to the beat of the ghetto tunes. In this same clime, we have seen the aspiring political actors weep in naming ceremony homes thinking it was a funeral home. These actors can act any role at this time to garner support and sympathy. Of course, desperate moments call for desperate measures.
It‘s the season; it‘s the same strategy reactivated. Nothing much has changed. Has the Nigerian public changed its reception to these stunts? No credible data to believe otherwise because if they had rejected it, the aspirants thronging everywhere now won‘t be pulling these stunts.
And the stunts work well with the electorates especially the undiscerning among them, and our politicians are perfectly catching in on to this. If my memory serves me right, I think it was Adams Oshiomole, former national chairman of the APC who popularized this stunting game while seeking his reelection as Governor of Edo State. While seeking for his re-election as Governor of Edo State, the comrade governor became a media sensation when he decided to patronize a roadside maize hawker. Pronto, his entourage joined suit as the street became a choreographed assemblage of government officials with their lips glued to the maize, like they were playing that special mouth organ called chromatic harmonica!
In 2015, it was Aisha Buhari, wife to the current president of Nigeria who shook the internet with a photo image of a beautiful northern woman frying akara on the street. That single move catapulted the electoral fortunes of her husband who was seeking election to unseat President Goodluck Jonathan. Whoever conceived that thought deserves the medal of creative perceptive framing. The stunt sold wide and its effect was so hypodermic that many rural women received the ‚rare‘ gesture from an urban woman as identifying with them.
In the same campaign period, President Muhammadu Buhari became a darling sensation when he appeared for the first time after his military career in a body fitted suit that presented him as an iconic figure. The picture so trended that the internet begged for over-usage! The man was to add to his stunts when he decided to dance to the rhythmic music of King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall fondly called KWAM1. The clip from that music became a relishing sensation amongst the people of the south-west.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is another stunt master as far as political gimmickry are concerned. The photo of him and school pupils drinking sachet water popularly referred as ‚pure water‘ was a smash hit to his political marketing. The act swelled his support base as the electorates warmed to his stunt. Senator Shehu Sani from Kaduna deployed the Atiku stunt when he decided to distribute transistor radio to the electorates. He achieved his aim but got bashed by many political commentators who described his stunt as jejune and very primitive. The Governor of Kaduna, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai also joined the stunt gang when he went public with a rod of sugar cane in his mouth. The stunt yielded the many votes that greeted his re-election.
In selling the candidature of Muhammadu Buhari, former Rivers State Governor, Chief Rotimi Amaechi became a guest of hair salon where he joined women to help braid their hair. The man pundits referred to as the cat with nine lives never returned to the salon again though. Perhaps he may return as the race to 2023 general elections gathers momentum.
Recently, Governor Babatunde Sanwolu became the cynosure of internet scrutiny when he stopped his vehicle to talk to two girls with water on their heads instead of being at school at that time. So moved was the Lagos man that he instantly changed the misfortune of the girls into flourishing fortune by announcing instant scholarships. A move political onlookers described as a stunt too feeble and watery. They had asked if the governor was never aware that there were thousands of our school children in Lagos whose parents could barely pay their fees because of abject poverty.
Prodding further, they asked the Governor what he would do to address the issue of water scarcity in Lagos which is almost submerged by water? It must be stated that it‘s a big irony and one that speaks to the failure of leadership that a state who derived its name from Lagoon and informally addressed as a state of ‚aquatic splendour’ surprisingly leaves its residents scampering for water for domestic and public use. No irony is more biting than this.
Digression over. Back to the matter of political stunts. The latest trend is the rush to be turbaned and robed with northern titles. Politicians are falling heel over themselves to be robed by northern royalty. Like the intimidating title of Jagaban of Borgu, other politicians with eyes on the presidency are waiting in tow to be turbaned. We saw Chief Rotimi Amaechi recently in Katsina where he splashed with aesthetic northern royalty, same time the Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike was spotted with babanriga with Usman Danfodio cap, a dressing mode he once denigrated.
When next you see a political figure on your street, sweeping or frying akara in Mama Zainab small joint or relishing the aroma of Egusi soup in the small Kitchen of Mama Ngozi, don’t be surprised. This is the season. This is the era of bourgeoning political stunts. Certainly, there is no end to stunts politicians can pull whenever it is election time. The race to 2023 has just begun. Many more exhilarating stunts will be unveiled and deployed appropriately. As stated earlier, it‘s all part of the game and there‘s nothing wrong in it, even though some political puritans and purists say it‘s a sort of deceit meant to hoodwink uncritical minds into voting them come 2023. Well, the truth is that no law forbids politicians from pulling stunts so long they don‘t run afoul of the law.
By Abdullahi O Haruna Haruspice