For the sake of public relation and the general advice we can pick from it in our everyday lives here are some 7 reasons I think Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu lost the Edo State Governorship Election:
1. Over Confidence
If you are a politician and someone in your campaign team tells you “you done win” please sack him. He has no business there. Tell him since you won already he should go home and celebrate with his family. We kept seeing that Obaseki was more popular but mentioning it alone may earn you the hammer and the charge of working for PDP, this is because supporters of politicians are not realistic people, they prefer their illusion.
A case is narrated of a group of boys campaigning for Ize Iyamu. After a hectic day of campaign they sat down to gist, in the process one of them said “Pastor done win Edo North already, make he just go dey campaign for Benin, na their Obaseki for popular pass am” You know what the response was? He was beaten up by his own team for even suggesting Benin needs work. That is how the average APC member reacted to any reference to Obaseki being more popular.
Observe Nigeria did a poll and it was over 70% for Obaseki and just over 20% for Ize Iyamu. Channels did their poll days after, the same thing. Much earlier, I attended a meeting where a senior Ize Iyamu man was present and I asked about Ize Iyamu’s popularity considering Oshiomole and Tony Kabaka being in the picture and, just like the polls, this was refuted with “people you see commenting online don’t have PVC”
2.Oshiomhole
While people generally like Oshiomhole in that Obasanjo kind of way (big man doing ordinary things), they don’t like to be deceived. I have consistently said Oshiomhole being on the campaign was a terrible idea. We saw how the Obaseki campaign used it. They made a documentary promoting Obaseki for over 30 minutes and Oshiomhole was the voice over; speaking from the initial side of his mouth, with all due respect. They mounted huge screen at Kings Square and speakers at Airport road playing hours upon hours of Oshiomhole’s slander of Ize Iyamu and praise of Obaseki.
Had he simply clarified that he was lying against Ize Iyamu and then sit in his village reading newspaper, the Obaseki camp would not have been able to sustain the “Oshiomole is a hypocrite” narrative that they used in winning the election. At some point the people would have said ok forget Oshiomhole, he is not contesting. They couldn’t say that when Oshiomole was sounding like he is.
We have not even address the issue of how a lot of Muslims did not key into the Christian Muslim ticket because they dismissed it as another of Oshiomhole’s antics. The likes of Ihama and Urhogide are normally Ize Iyamu’s people. That was my calculation that they will work for him despite being PDP. But a day to election I was reminded that Oshiomhole humiliated Urhogide and he is on a personal mission to revenge. Whatever the case, Oshiomhole was a baggage Ize Iyamu insisted on carrying for strange reasons.
3. Tony Kabaka
This man collected tax, pocket to hand, in Edo before the coming of Obaseki. He says publicly “I helped Obaseki win, then he gave me POS to use to collect money”. His argument was that his boys should continue to collect money as they wish from suffering market women and transporters. On some other clip he says “How can person when no get pikin be Governor of Edo State? Never again” referring to Obaseki being without a child. But somehow, someone somewhere thought it was a good idea for this guy to show up at APC campaigns.
In the same meeting I referred to earlier, the personnel told me that Tony Kabaka has his value, even if it is nuisance value. We have now discovered that subtraction sign can come before some value. Edo people didn’t want the time when a guy will enter their cab, take it around town for the whole day, then when it is time to pay he replies with “I am a Kabaka boy” so that you either start going without your money or receive the beating of your life before you start going without your money. Again Ize Iyamu insisted on carrying this baggage, and he didn’t have to except for the excuse that since Phillip has men he also need men. As though Phillip should be anybody’s teacher.
4. Bola Tinubu
The first time I saw the slogan “Edo No Be Lagos” I said if these people use this well they will win. Everyone wants to be free. The first propaganda the Obaseki people used was that Tinubu wants to come and dictate who should be Governor of Edo State. But as Tinubu was not saying much, this slogan was becoming second fiddle so that we started hearing the very empty “4+4, it will be complete” (rendered in Edo). So you could imagine my surprise when few days to the election I saw a video of Bola Tinubu asking Edo people to vote for APC while describing himself as a leader. I said are they trying very hard to lose? Majority of the votes are in Benin, the average Benin man is full of self respect and a lot of pride for who he is. Whose laughable idea was that? Obaseki camp replied with a Davido song that is not two months old, basically asking him to shut up. Of course the reply was more popular than the original video.
5. Disregard for Professionals
Like I mentioned about Ize Iyamu before all these, my fear was that he appears like he knows what he is doing too much. I hear, for example, that Obaseki brought in professional publicists to handle his campaign. And you could see that they had a concept. They portrayed him as the underdog and succeeded. Now there was no publicist to tell Ize Iyamu that he has been painted a bully and that “Don’t wish for a better life, get ready for it” would not cut it at this point because it sounds just as authoritive as the opponent wanted him to look. These are things only professionals or naturals can tell you. And same for the debate. That it was time to even crack jokes with his opponent and show he is very humane as I know personally that he is.
Everything appeared to be handled by a structure of politicians and people “I have known”. I also feared that his government would go the same way of people I know as against technocrats.
6. Underdog Effect
Just like I alluded to earlier, Obaseki was packaged as the underdog. I don’t want to go into if he actually is but when you tell a people that this man was disqualified by the same people that said he was qualified before, and then you tell the same people that Oshiomole, Captain Osa, Igbenedion, Tony Kabaka, Bola Tinubu, Hope Uzodinma, Yahya Bello, and Ganduje and apst every powerful person they know are all comitted to his not coming back why will they not think he is being oppressed?
A good PR move would have been to remove the influence of these people and make Obaseki seem as he is; the person in power. I told someone that if not for my brother Hon. Gani I would donate a billboard design to Obaseki showing the pictures of these long list of influential people on one side, then a “Vs.” sign followed by him and a market woman laughing on the other side. That is how powerfully well you can use victimhood to win people over.
What we saw was obviously a protest vote. And the protest was against Oshiomole, Kabaka, and APC (largely because of the drama of disqualification). Nothing was done publicity-wise to prevent this, as we just carried on like those issues don’t exist.
7. The Simple Agenda
I hope his losing does not discourage others from coming out with a plan on what they wish to do but like I have been mentioning the Simple Agenda did not win votes, it only suggested that it is promises as usual. Nobody will vote for you if you say “I will build infrastructure” or “I will create jobs” people will only feel deceived. People will buy in if you instead say “I will not just create 300,000 jobs and give to people who have connection. I will create these jobs and make it compulsory that any family that does not have a government worker already gets to present a family member for employment” Now people know you are talking about them and the job will, as they say it, reach their hand. Now a father can hear this and say ah, please everyone one get PVC, I have three graduates no good job. When you just say job people don’t connect, go further to show them how it will reach them.
Let your plan be personal to people and let essentials be local. Why do people need to go to Central Hospital to queue when most of them just need to see a Doctor for consultation? Why do they need to crowd hospitals for blood test and ante natal. Simply have a flat (250K yearly), examination bed, blood test equipment and a few nurses in every area, if you like add small pharmacy join, remember will even be enough to run the place. Employment can even be area based, so that community nurse themselves with government support. This is just one example of essentials being local. At least when you say stuff like this people know you are actually talking of their welfare in the actual sense because they can see it and how it will work. Not we will raise funds, we will build hospital, we will build road. Sell to the people let them know in the most simple terms what they are getting PERSONALLY.
PS: If you read all of this you do well. Pray for whoever is in office and support him. Last last it is all about having a better society. And don’t forget everything we are analysing may be because we are not truly in the situation. We analyse for progress, pick what makes sense and ignore the rest please.
Importantly, stay on the truth. And don’t allow politics and political gains change your opinion.
Ohwojeheri is based in Benin City, Edo State
