THE KINGSLEY AND DUMEBI SHOW

Politicians should be more creative in engaging the citizens, argues Paul Nwabuikwu

A few days ago, I caught Dumebi Kachikwu, the newly minted presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) on Channels TV responding to the recent controversy around his emergence as the party’s flagbearer.

It will be recalled that soon after the announcement of his victory at the party’s convention, the process was denounced as corrupt by his main rival, former deputy governor of the Central Bank Professor Kingsley Moghalu and other aspirants. Mr Kachikwu was accused of buying off delegates. Moghalu followed up his criticism – “I won’t endorse obscene corruption” – by resigning his membership of the party in protest.

His reaction is understandable. Kachikwu’s election was not just a surprise; it was shocking. Against expectations, he handily defeated Moghalu, the party’s most-high profile member, by 977 to 339 votes. In other words, Kachikwu got almost triple the number of votes that Moghalu obtained. It was, by any definition, a trouncing. Remarkably, most Nigerians were not even aware that the victor was a member of the party before he blew the Professor of International Business and Public Policy away at the party’s convention.

Expectedly, Kachikwu, younger brother of former Minister of State, Petroleum Resources Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu disagreed with his accusers during the television appearance. He declared that his victory was the product of his robust wooing of delegates with his great ideas and dynamic vision for the party and country, nothing else. He also claimed that he told the delegates the night before the elections that he had no intention of paying for their votes. Some of the delegates, he claimed, wept when he gave them the bad news.

If his colourful tale is true, the tears of the ADC delegates were no doubt inspired by the dollar bazaars that held the nation spellbound and sent the Naira on a downward spiral during the recent PDP and APC conventions. The reality of getting so close to paradise and coming out with nothing must have been a bit too much for the hardworking ADC delegates when their hopes were dashed.

But Kachikwu, a smooth, glib talker was not done yet. After refuting the accusations, he tried to turn the tables on his main rival. It was actually Moghalu, he said, who bribed delegates throughout the process and continued sending them monetary inducement until the final hours before the voting. The proof: the delegates who Moghalu allegedly paid off had shared the evidence with him (Kachikwu).

“I have the evidence here in my phone. I can show you,” he told the bemused interviewer, Seun Okunbaloye who didn’t seem too unimpressed.

Significantly, Kachikwu did not clarify if the honest or remorseful delegates sent back the bribe before or after telling him about the wicked efforts to corrupt them.

Kachikwu’s story sounds a bit “too sweet”, as we say in these parts. In the course of the interview, he had let slip that he hosted the delegates the night before the voting at an event where, presumably, only food was shared. He also admitted that he, along with other aspirants, paid for the delegates accommodation. These revelations didn’t quite fit in with his muscular proclamations of impeccable integrity. As Shakespeare would have said, the gentleman doth protest a bit too much.

It’s too early to say if the Kingsley and Dumebi show will go beyond these initial skirmishes or, more likely, peter out like other Nigerian pseudo-controversies. Moghalu also hasn’t said much since his resignation from ADC, although his campaign website, Moghalu4nigeria.org remains active. So far, he has kept any future plans close to his chest. Yesterday, he tweeted a photo of himself sitting relaxed in a red throne-like chair, an assortment of newspapers in his lap with the caption “Happy weekend. Chill. Relax!”. The message is clear: “Life goes on. I’m not bothered. I’ve put the unhappy events of the recent past behind me.”

One hopes that the professor who holds the traditional title of Ifekaego (more valuable than money) of Nnewi has not given up on politics. While it lasted, his campaign for president captured the imagination of a small but passionate number of supporters and fans who bought into his vision of a reformed, restructured and productive Nigerian economy which works for all citizens, not just a few fact cats.  Moghalu who first came out to seek the presidency five years ago under the banner of his previous party, Young Progressives Party had attracted positive reviews and even endorsements by his former boss at the CBN, ex-Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka, and the Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, among others.

Now that the Moghalu political momentum has been halted, hopefully the opportunity to test the electoral relevance of his ideas has not been lost forever. Personally, even before his defeat, I had doubts about his ability to translate his somewhat elitist campaign into electoral capital and ultimate victory. There is nothing wrong with serious ideas. I have a few myself. Nigeria needs serious, rigorous people in key leadership positions to confront the many serious, existential threats to the country’s political and economic survival.

The challenge is to translate these ideas into relatable messages that resonate with the public in a poor and poorly educated country. Moghalu has so far not achieved this. His professorial achievements and intellect, not the solutions he offers, walk into the room before he does. The whiff of the ivory tower and that sense of detachment and distance that go with it dogs his efforts.

The easy answer is to blame the Nigerian public for lack of discernment, for its failure to appreciate the virtues of “serious candidates”. Why don’t Nigerians listen to candidates like Moghalu the same way they swoon over Big Brother and the latest music and antics of Burna Boy, Davido, Wizkid and Flavour? But the question, however logical, is quite wrongheaded. It’s the job of politicians to find credible and creative ways of reaching, engaging and persuading a critical mass of the citizens they wish to serve. The citizens are the customers who are, of course, kings and queens. Politicians, however accomplished, must distil policy priorities into relatable and easy to absorb messages, then reach down to engage the citizens and persuade them to support the vision and ideas with votes on election day.

A good example of effective messaging comes from communism, an intellectually dense ideology that an inspired propagandist transformed into a revolutionary charge that shook the world: “Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains”.

And it is not only in poor societies that distilled, relatable political messaging and style are needed. Even in the rich west, politicians on the stump do away with suits and ties in favour of rolled up sleeves, press the flesh in stadiums and factories and adopt youth-friendly popular slogans. They also play down academic accomplishments and language which voters might find unduly “superior’ and off putting.

A good example is former German Chancellor Angela Merkel obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 which most of the world is not aware of. Barack Obama taught at Harvard but he is much better known for “Yes, we can!”. The strange thing about intellectual and academic achievements is that people might respect you for “big grammar” in a general sense but may not want you as a leader because you remain fundamentally an unknown, unrelatable quantity.

One hopes that Moghalu hasn’t given up on Nigerian politics and that he will make some much needed changes in communicating his useful, rigorous ideas as he ponders his next steps. Nigeria needs all the serious politicians it can find even if they might need to be a little less serious and a bit more creative in engaging and persuading an angry, cynical and poorly educated public.

Nwabuikwu is a member of THISDAY Editorial Board