The Day Andy Uba Showed Up In My Class
 Recently in a Public Relations
class I teach, it was Marie’s turn to discuss
contemporary public relations and marketing
communications issues from around the globe. The
students usually trawl various publications and
websites in their search for the week’s breaking
news in marketing communications, and have in the
past found brandrepublic.com, mediaguardian.co.uk,
campaign, pr week, and brandchannel.com very useful.
Marie zeroed in on the
McCanns; she informed the class that they have
recently hired
Clarence Mitchell, a former BBC reporter as a
full time PR consultant. The McCanns were tired of
the bad press they have been receiving and
desperately wanted to turn the negatives into
positives. The class afterwards debated on the pros
and cons of the current strategy adopted by the
McCanns as they attempt to fight it out in the court
of public opinion whose sympathy over the
disappearance of their daughter – Madeleine is
gradually melting away like the Baltic snow,
especially with the McCanns being officially
classified as suspects (Aguido) by the Portuguese
police in the case involving the disappearance of
their daughter. This was a little after a debate had
raged on a Nigerian internet website -
www.nigeriavillagesquare.com concerning Andy Uba
and his recent move to get the Supreme Court of
Nigeria to upturn their earlier judgement and
reinstate him as governor of Anambra state.
It all started with Okey Ndibe
whose piece titled
My Vote for Andy Uba elicited a response from
the Uba camp. Their response came in the form of two
essays respectively titled
Okey Ndibe on Andy Uba
written by Jerome Azubuko, and
Apogee of Hate by Okey Ndibe written by
Chuka Nwosu, Ex-Director of Public Affairs of the
Andy Uba Campaign Organisation (AUCO).
Okey Ndibe countered the Uba
camp’s arguments with a tongue-in-cheek essay aptly
titled
My poor pulverized self. Other interested
parties have also joined in the fray. Ikenna
Ellis-Ezenekwe who runs the website
www.ukpakareports.com wrote a piece titled –
Andy Uba & Okey Ndibe’s activism in which
he wondered why Okey Ndibe dwells so much on the
Andy Uba issue to the neglect of other issues
affecting indigenes of his native Amawbia town and
Anambra state in general. In turn, Rudolph Okonkwo
accused Ikenna of selling out in a piece titled
Understanding the likes of Ikenna Ellis-Ezenekwe.
Ikenna countered in another piece –
Andy Uba has not bought me and I have not sold out!.
Ikenna received another bashing
from the wordsmith
Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh in
Okey Ndibe versus the Clique of Renegades,
followed by another thumping at the hands of
Chidi Anyaeche in a piece titled
Still on "The Paid Distraction Named Ikenna
Ellis-Ezenekwe". Mr Anyaeche had previously
written a scathing article titled –
Exit of the Orange Juice Governor when Anambra
state’s governor Peter Obi received the sack from
the state House of Assembly before he was eventually
reinstated by the Supreme Court in the
landmark judgement. Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye of the
Daily Independent newspaper went a step
further and called time on his articles being posted
on Ikenna’s Ukpakareports.com, he also instructed
that his previous articles should be yanked off the
website.
This public spat of ‘toing and
froing’ between what one may now describe as the
Ndibe camp (‘the good guys’) and the Uba camp (‘the
bad guys’) have continued with subsequent articles
written by the different parties to the raging
debates. Lately, it was Chuka Nwosu who published
Ndibe's Fatalism
versus Iwu's Realism still
harping on Okey Ndibe’s ‘obsession’ with everything
Andy Uba.
There is no longer any doubt
that the fight for the soul of Anambra state has
since left the battle ground itself (Anambra state)
and has now shifted to newspaper pages and internet
websites. Also, the Supreme Court appears not to be
the central focus point anymore, the court of public
opinion now is. Perhaps there are lessons to be
learnt by Nigerian politicians from the Andy Uba
saga. Being that the most important trial in
election disputes is in the court of public opinion,
therefore it is important that Nigerian politicians
should be prepared and learn how to navigate the
communication minefields that the internet and
traditional media present.
I have found the whole unending
Andy Uba saga fascinating since it appears that no
other politician in Nigeria’s recent history except
Mr Uba’s former boss, Olusegun Obasanjo has been so
derided, mocked, hated, misunderstood and debated on
Nigerian newspaper pages and on internet websites.
From my personal perspective as a communications
scholar and teacher, one could see that clearly the
Andy Uba story divorced from the usual spiritual and
moral preachments raises some interesting
communication issues. I chose to leave the former to
those more pious to pontificate and therefore
decided to introduce Andy Uba into one of my
lectures.
I started the lecture by
running off a 10 - minute background commentary and
told the students who Mr Uba is; what he wants and
what Nigerians know about him based on what the
media write about him. I told them to think of him
as a PR client, but one with a huge baggage (he is
considered public enemy number one in some
quarters); I equally reminded them that such baggage
is deeply compensated by the huge war chest
available to the client (supposedly). I then asked
them to play the role of
Max Clifford (the doyen of UK public relations
practice) in Uba’s case.
The class was split into 4
groups and told that based on the assumed wealth of
the ‘client’ (Andy Uba); budget would not be a
problem. From the initial brief I gave them, I told
the class to come up with a PR plan for the ‘client’
that will help achieve three core objectives.
- Media relations: manage the media
(traditional and online channels) and
win sympathy for the client amongst
various stakeholders
- Re-position the client as a trusted,
loving family man with traditional
values with the aim of appealing to
Anambra people (primary target
audience), and other Nigerians
(secondary target audience).
- Win the client support and sympathy
in the court of public opinion
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Being that they were only just
briefed and not knowing the other details and
circumstances of the case, including the peculiar
nature of Nigerian politics, I was on standby to
support the groups as they tried to bounce off
ideas, helping them fill some missing information
gaps where necessary. This included filling the
students in on OBJ, Third term, Chris Uba, Okey
Ndibe, Sahara Reporters, NigeriaVillageSquare.com,
Ikenna Ellis-Ezenekwe, Larita Mabbington, PDP etc.
As the students progressed on
with their Andy Uba PR plans, it was well obvious to
me that my original lecture plan was well out of the
window. There was no way we were going to get all I
had planned done in 2 and half hours, especially
with the introduction of the unplanned Andy Uba case
study.
After about 20 minutes, I had
to move the class on for pace and prompted the
groups to round up their discussions in readiness
for sharing their ideas with the rest of the class.
The class buzzed with ideas. Group A tagged their
campaign Project Andy Uba. Group B called theirs
Emerald (didn’t say why when I asked them). Group C
were more academic reeling off a long header. Group
D had no title and when prompted decided to also
adopt Project Andy Uba.
Unanimously all the groups
agreed that the client is ‘damaged’ goods. Group C
however attempted to argue a strong case that in PR
terms, it is better to be considered a damaged good
than a ‘finished’ or ‘expired’ good. Their reason
being that damaged goods could be fixed or mended. I
chuckled and knew that if Andy Uba was in the room,
he would really be pleased at the life line.
I asked the groups if in
reality, they would love to work for such a client.
Again, a strong YES echoed from the class. Which PR
consultant in his right mind would turn down such a
lucrative account they wondered. Quirkily, Frances,
the blonde who normally sits at the back of the
class said that all politicians were the same
anyway, he called them liars. She reminded the class
of Tony Blair and George Bush and their former spin
doctor Alistair Campbell who went to war in Iraq on
the evidence of a ‘sexed
up’ dossier on Iraq and Saddam Hussain.
“Nigerian politicians will not be any different” she
concluded.
The students did provide lots
of insight during their presentations. Group B felt
that Andy Uba should be his best PR spokesman. (I
had told them of Mr. Uba’s penchant for shying away
from the media, many Nigerians particularly those
that condemn him have never heard him speak), they
argued that he should tour the talk show circuits
and morning news programmes to engage in discussions
on economic and political importance. “He may just
be able redeem himself, better than any minder could
do for him”, they concluded.
I particularly liked Group C’s
presentation. This 5 – man team which comprised of 3
male students and 2 females appeared very
hot-headed, a bit radical in their approach. If we
were to judge a book by its cover, I could tell that
they would make good Whitehall spin-doctors in the
future. Perhaps, the phrase, ‘no spin zone’ meant
nothing to them. They were all for the ‘client’
turning the table against even his supposed
‘master’- OBJ.
Using third parties; they
argued that it was possible to plant stories in the
media through sponsored hacks and leak incriminating
information to the media concerning the former
president (Obasanjo) and his top aides. Such a
strategy should easily swallow his ‘petty crime’ of
transporting the sum of $175,000 aboard the
presidential jet. To some extent I saw some sense in
their argument, since politics is a game of
survival; politicians have in the past adopted some
underhand tactics to stay afloat. Andy Uba will not
be the first to adopt such a strategy. But the flip
side is that this may backfire, if the stories were
to be traced back to him, or his camp, then he will
be toast.
Group D’s presentation bothered
mainly on morality and ethics, virtues that I
reminded the students were scarce commodities in the
Nigerian political terrain. They were full of ideals
advocating for Andy Uba to come clean and ask for
the people’s forgiveness, they reasoned that that
may win him sympathy and the votes he so much
craves. I disagreed with this group and told them
that such a strategy could be likened to Mr Uba
committing political suicide. Not even in America or
the United Kingdom, where we imported our own brand
of democracy from do politicians own up to their
sins. I reminded them that even Bill Clinton, the
golden boy of American politics lied his way till
the end during the Monica Lewinsky scandal with his
famous line – “I
did not have sexual relations with that woman”.
Considering the limited time
and information at their disposal, I felt that the
students did very well, some of them showed
additional interest and wished to be informed of
further breaking news in the Andy Uba story. I have
so far brought to their attention a recent
publication on Ikenna Ellis-Ezenekwe’s
ukpakareprts.com website –
How Obasanjo Met Andy Uba, and Rudolph Okonkwo’s
publication on the kwenu.com website titled -
Andy Uba: Restating the nature of the Evil.
Perhaps the main beneficiary
from the whole Andy Uba saga has been the incumbent
governor, Mr Peter Obi, whose well documented
democratic travails has made him a favourite amongst
the gods and the people. Mr Obi’s current political
status may be likened to that of an untouchable or
scared cow as any attempts at criticisms of his
government’s lack lustre style and approach is
visited with harsh rebukes from people of whom
dissenting views represent signs of a sell-out.
While the battle for the
control of the soul and purse of Anambra state
carries on, it still has to be said that it is
Ndi Anambra that are worse for it as their lot
has not yet improved one bit whether under Andy
Uba’s brief tenure or Peter Obi’s chequered and
gods – ordained 1st and 2nd
tours of duty. There does not seem to be any
concerted efforts at improving the lot of the common
man on the street and in the many villages of
Anambra state, this bigger tragedy I think should
the focus of well meaning Anambrarians and friends
of Anambra state, rather than the present
voyeuristic interest and focus on the state by the
so - called concerned observers.
December 2007.
http://thelongharmattanseason.blogspot.com/
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