Emmanuel Umohinyang
That the task of information management in contemporary politics is very huge globally cannot be overemphasised.

This is because information management is strategic to winning elections and the information manager must therefore have competence, character, and capacity, to succeed.

It is therefore safe to conclude that an Information Manager can therefore make or mar the chances of his principal through his action or inaction.

This is currently playing out on our political turf as the 2023 general elections billed for next February gradually stares us in the face.

To say we are slowly seeing what to expect next year confronting us daily from spokespersons of the parties, be it All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) and others are very true.

Unexpectedly, the agenda set for the parties and Nigerians is for them to tell Nigerians what they are offering them in terms of their programmes.

Some have even extended the conversation by asking the parties not to only tell us their programmes, but to go a step further by explaining HOW they are going to actualise these programmes.

Curiously, others are demanding a timeline for the actualisation of these programmes from the parties and their presidential candidates.

This shows that Nigerians have upped their game as far as the coming elections are concerned as it will not be business as usual.

Surely, the surge in registration and collection of permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) is no doubt a strong statement to any serious political party by the voting public that the era of voting for voting’s sake is over.

One would therefore expect political parties to speak to issues that are of serious importance to the average Nigerian, especially in these challenging times.

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It is in this context that recent vituperations of Chief Dele Momodu, spokesman of the Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign organization on the “renewed Hope” manifesto of APC Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu needs to be examined.

For the Ovation publisher, the 80-page document is nothing but copy and paste as it was ‘stolen’ from the Late Chief MKO Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election’s manifesto.

This writer has taken more than a passive interest in the APC manifesto and can authoritatively say that the document is one of the best manifestos in our political history.

This is unexpected because of Tinubu’s towering credentials as a seasoned technocrat, consummate politician, competence, and capacity, which today puts him miles ahead of his competitors.

For the records, “Renewed Hope” addresses the major issues at the heart of attaining prosperity, growth, and development of the nation-security, economy, fiscal policy, import substitution, tax reform, optimization of government revenue, monetary policy, exchange rate management, industrial policy, housing, agric, power and more.

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The new agenda seeks to achieve ten objectives which are job creation and decent wages for youths as the baseline for creating a better life, manufacturing, and invention of goods and services, thereby transforming Nigeria from a country of mere consumers to creators.

It also aims to bring about less importation and more exportation for strengthening the naira, an agric policy that promotes productivity and guarantees a decent income for farmers, modernisation and expansion of public infrastructure, harnessing the energy of youths in the digital economy, entertainment, culture and tourism, and abolition of poverty.

On security, the Tinubu/Shettima ticket believes that the fundamental responsibility of government is to protect the lives and property of citizens.

Consequently, it has promised to mobilize the totality of national security, military, and law enforcement assets to protect all Nigerians from danger and fear of danger.

To achieve this, Tinubu is banking on technology backed by the recruitment of personnel to give a fillip to the war against insecurity.

Tinubu, experience has shown is not new to this way of doing things. What he is promising is reminiscent of how he tackled insecurity when he was greeted by a gravely serious situation upon the assumption of office as Lagos State governor.

The first step is to bolster the security forces through recruitment, training, and procurement of equipment.

The second is the redefinition of military doctrine and practice. This is why he is proposing “Anti-terrorist battalions” highly trained and disciplined with special force units, whose objective Tinubu says is to seize the strategic and tactical initiative, giving terrorists, kidnappers, and bandits no respite.

In terms of tax reforms, the presidential hopeful is conscious of the undesirability of increasing taxation and is thus proposing a progressive tax regime, devoid of harmful loopholes and efficient collection.

This is aside from reforming the civil service to fight corruption, reduce bureaucracy, streamline agencies and decrease inefficiency and waste.

He also plans to reduce costs by streamlining what government spends on itself. A cap, he said will be placed on fiscal expenditures on government buildings, compensation for elected officials and senior government personnel

In the area of power, Tinubu believes our economic woes are closely connected with power as the nation has approximately 12,000MW installed capacity, generates only 8,000MW, and is only able to distribute a meager 4,500MW to consumers.

The APC presidential candidate came up with the Enron project as a way of addressing power problems in Lagos while serving as Governor.

His cardinal goal is to increase generation, transmission, and distribution. Apart from encouraging off-grid and renewable power generation, he is promising to work with the private sector to provide access to low-cost finance for power projects.

Tinubu’s “renewed hope’’ which has been widely acknowledged as an ingenious road map to national recovery also has brilliant solutions to other issues critical to national development.

This is unlike Momodu’s boss manifesto “My covenant with Nigerians” which has generated far less attention from Nigerians though the document came out much earlier. The title of the document alone is suspect as it is doubtful which Nigerians, the PDP presidential candidate is talking about.

Unlike Atiku, Tinubu took his time to have a heart-to-heart discussion with Nigerians, across the country before coming out with his commendable action plan.

It was therefore unexpected when Momodu was taken to the cleaners by many Nigerians, including APC presidential candidate campaign spokesman, Festus Keyamo (SAN) for attempting to disparage a worthy intellectual effort.

Said Keyamo “Dele Momodu should have rather stayed in his accustomed lane of praise-singing socialites and the likes, instead of dabbling in the more demanding job of critiquing policy statements. It is not his forte! The quality of his recent write-up is a testament that his team is not made up of experts in governance and policy formulation. He must have gathered his team of photographers and video editors to read through a document that is far beyond their tabloid cantered minds.

“One would have expected Dele Momodu to make clear comparative analyses between the Hope “93 campaign document of MKO Abiola and the Renewed Hope document of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He goofed miserably. He was just huffing without substance. A write-up that was intended to be a critique of a document on its supposed lack of details ended up as an empty shell.

The eminent lawyer’s reaction seems to have captured the entire scenario appropriately. But l blame Festus Keyamo (SAN) because there’s an adage that says that if you want to make a dog your friend you must make available sufficient bones in other to quench its taste. It was Omoyele Sowore who said that hunger is a bastard, nobody in Dele’s current situation will grab Atiku’s usual benevolence that comes from every electoral circle. Worse still, Momodu is not getting the flaks from the APC alone, even from his party, Governor Nyesom Wike dealt him another killer punch for his indiscretion while commenting on the PDP crisis.

The governor said, “Ask him when he came into PDP. He came into PDP two weeks before the presidential primary. He is from Edo State. Not one vote. Let’s say from his state, at least let’s vote for our son.

“You just want them to recognise you, presidential aspirant that became a spokesman. Somebody who wants to rule Nigeria has become a spokesman for a presidential candidate. I am not sure Dele Momodu has any intention of becoming president ditto for a few others. The shenanigans within our electoral space are largely based on failed businessmen of the past who thinks that a political terrain is a quick place of redemption.

It is doubtful whether any presidential candidate’s spokesman has received the kind of avoidable knocks Dele has received for apparent lack of discretion. As unstable as he may be, he is not beyond redemption if only he will focus more on issues and less on the justification of the generosity of the candidate.

The greatest lesson is that such jobs must be handled analytically with a lot of credibility, tact, and facts, not playing to the gallery in the name of a clueless opposition’s mouthpiece.

Umohinyang, a social commentator and political analyst writes from the United Kingdom.