In the wake of constant criticism of President Goodluck Jonathan on social media, his Special Assistant on New Media, Reno Omokri, speaks in an online interview with TEMITAYO FAMUTIMI on his job and his boss' rating
Why is the President's social media presence not being felt on social networks other than Facebook?
I will disagree with you. The President has a presence on other New Media platforms. He does not have to be there in person but his symbols are there. Dr. Reuben Abati (Presidential Adviser on Media and Publicity) is the President's voice. He is on Twitter and very successfully, I might add. The President would not just do things because others are doing it. Don't forget he has a PhD. He is a philosopher king and so he thinks before he acts.
Now speaking about Twitter, you need to understand that it is a medium for instant communication. Now for such a medium, when you have many competing voices, people will sometimes feel they have to do something different, may be something shocking, in order to stand out. As such, people can lose their sense of proportion in order to get instant notoriety on Twitter. This is a phenomenon that started in the United States.
On Twitter, if given the choice, people choose to say what will get noticed over what represents their minds. In many cases, the object is not to communicate, it is to be popular. And if you ever went to high school or college in the United States, you know that the personality of the popular kids is a facade that quickly falls apart when they graduate from high school or college and move on to the real world.
President Jonathan and his party are both loved and hated on social media but their performance in terms of increasing the Gross Domestic Product of Nigeria, revamping the railways and making it possible to travel from Lagos to Kano in 30 hours for N1,500, ensuring a modest and continuing increase in electricity generation, has earned them popularity in the real world.
President Jonathan is the African President with the highest following on Facebook. What factors would you adduce to this?
One achievement of President Goodluck Jonathan, which goes by unnoticed, is the fact that he has changed the perception that the world has about Nigerians and the Internet. Of course, we all know the stereotype of the Nigerian email or such other schemes and it is a stereotype because many of these schemes have been proven to originate from outside Nigeria.
And many may ask, why has the President of Nigeria achieved more success on Facebook, especially when compared to leaders of nations that have a better Internet penetration rate than Nigeria?
In my opinion, the reason is because what President Jonathan thinks, feels and says are communicated in such a clear and unambiguous manner that when it gets to the intended recipient of the message, whether that is the Nigerian public, the General Assembly of the United Nations or any target audience, they can perceive the integrity of his message and even if they do not agree with it they can at least say that they understand what he is trying to say. In summary, what can be said is that President Jonathan's message is easily understood because it is sincere.
Does the President ever check his Facebook fan page? If yes, how often?
Let's leave those ones.
How many social/digital media media projects/campaigns have you embarked upon as the SA(New Media) to the President and how successful are they?
Let's leave those ones.
How do you and Mr. President handle bad comments and uncomplimentary remarks on the President's Facebook account?
I challenge you to do a scientific analysis of the comments on the President's Facebook page when next he puts up an update. For instance, one of his last few updates had about 20,000 comments. It is still there. Go and check it out. Now of those 20,000 comments, the vast majority were positive. Many of them are messages of support. A lot are prayers. There were and will always be the naysayers.
But, Individuals, nations and humanity as a whole tend to perform better under a banner of approval than under a cloud of criticism. Not that people should not criticise, but if you must criticise with ideas not with insults. If the Good Samaritan was a critic instead of a problem solver, who would have remembered him? You do not do constructive criticism with insults. It is like trying to build a house with a bulldozer. You end up destroying instead of building.
How did you become a new media enthusiast?
While in the United States I worked at Trippi and Associates and my then boss, Joe Trippi, wrote the Bible for new media engagement – titled 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised'. He was then the campaign manager of Governor Howard Dean of Vermont, United States and he was the first person to use new media for political purposes on an organised scale. You cannot be around such a person and something will not rub off. This was, however, before Facebook.
When Facebook came on stream, I returned home from work one day and saw my wife on it and I asked her what it was and she told me it was a new social media forum for connecting with old friends. That was how my wife introduced me to Facebook and I just ran with it and the rest is history.
What is your job description as the Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on New Media?
My job entails a lot and I am not sure how much I can say in public but let me just say that I am a firm believer in the President's Transformation Agenda and with the fear of God I do all in my power to advance the President's agenda on all available new media platforms.
How challenging is your job?
The job is quite tasking especially given the attitude of Nigerians to people in government which is as a result of their experience under military rule and is quite understandable. There is a lot of anger from Nigerians, which was pent up in the past but because they now have a God-fearing leader, who is able to handle dissent, the lid has been blown off and a small vocal minority has organised, sometimes behind people with an agenda, to vent their anger.
But that notwithstanding, I do not see young Nigerians as children of anger. For example, young Nigerians gave Nigeria Nollywood which is now the third largest movie industry in the world.
