by Ayomide Ekerin

“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

When Abraham Lincoln said those words, he had no idea that there would be a time like this, when the internet and social media reign as kings. These days, it’s advisable not to attempt to fool anyone. If you try, and you think you have succeeded in fooling “some people”, the noise of “all the people” on social media will bring those people back to their senses.

So, a man trying to convince everyone about anything, whether such things are true not, must tread cautiously, because social media rage is no respecter of persons. The reason is not farfetched. The flow of information has been democratised. Gone are the days when information and ideas flow vertically from opinion leaders, autocratic governments and the media to the passive audience. Technology and the widely-practiced democratic political system have become the twin determiners of our way of life.

Everyone is an “opinion leader” in his own right. Anyone with a smartphone and internet subscription owns a stake in the media. So it seems that propaganda is powerless in the digital age. However, nothing could be far from the truth. If anything, propaganda has become more powerful. Those who know how to tell their stories, whether true or false, hold everyone’s attention. When they speak, we listen, we like what they posted, we share their post, we retweet their tweets, we make their words trend. It’s all propaganda.

Yet, when the likes of Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed speaks, he gets vitriols in return. Yes, Nigerians are tired of his fibs, but his lack of mastery of propaganda has been his major undoing.

What the likes of Uncle Lai does not understand is that propaganda is far more complex than lying about the facts. Propaganda is designed to look like facts that are true and right, and they are properly weaved to connect with the audience emotionally.

Since the beginning of this administration till now, it is quite clear that Uncle Lai cares little for the intricacies of propaganda, neither does he have a strategy to connect with Nigerians. He comes out to say what he thinks Nigerians want to hear, and Nigerians throw it all back in his face. He is so unbelievable, that he can even be credited with statements he never made, as long as it appears that he can make such statements. Maybe Uncle Lai needs to go back to school; the school of propaganda.

Editor