by Kolapo Olapoju
The Presidency has claimed that it was not aware of the #BringBackJonathan2015 campaign banners, despite those banners being placed around many parts of Abuja, the federal capital.
Bowing to the pressure of public opinion, Reuben Abati, the special adviser to the president on “Media and publicity” released a statement to this effect, urging the sponsors of the banners to bring them down immediately.
Many believe, the reaction is in response to the Washington Post Op-Ed of Tuesday, 9 September, ‘This may be the most inappropriate political hostage of the year,’ which criticised President Goodluck Jonathan over the campaign slogan in support of his re-election in 2015.
Abati’s statement said in part, “President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has directed that the #Bring Back Jonathan 2015 signs and banners around Abuja which he and many Nigerians find offensive and repugnant be brought down immediately. President Jonathan wholly shares the widely expressed view that the signs which were put up without his knowledge or approval are a highly insensitive parody of the #Bring Back Our Girls hash tag.”
Although the presidency’s statement suggests that the banners were designed without its knowledge, a prominent member of the presidency, Doyin Okupe, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to the President, has been at the forefront of the Twitter campaign of the #BringBackJonathan2015 hashtag, even tweeting it repeatedly on Friday, 22 August.
His tweets sought to sponsor and promote the hashtag, which is in sharp contrast with the presidency’s denial of having no ‘knowledge nor approval’ of the campaign banner. Before the tweets get deleted, here are some screenshots.
From the aforementioned facts, if the presidency was indeed unaware of the campaign, Doyin Okupe must have been working alone, which further validates his reputation as a ‘loose cannon’.
But since the campaign banners are all over the capital city, then the cars of members of the Presidency must have really dark tinted glasses, which must have prevented them from noticing the banners.
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