Gov Abdulrahman Orders Media Aides to Intensify Anti-Saraki Propaganda
Votes N1bn for their sleaze operation
Less than 10 days before the commencement of the general elections, Kwara State Governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq last week held a critical meeting with his media aides where he directed them to comb all government files and seek information inside and outside the state to dig out dirt to blackmail former Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki who is currently leading the campaign of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2023 polls in the state.
Abdulrazaq also informed the aides that he would make available a war chest of N1 billion for the assignment which he described as “very urgent and important”. He noted that the media aides should know that propaganda will play a key role in the coming elections and the government cannot allow the leader of the opposition party to outdo it.
According to a source close to the meeting, the governor reminded his aides that if not for an “efficiently ruthless propaganda campaign” that was mounted against Saraki and his followers before the 2019 elections, “we would not be where we are today”.
He added that “elections are about sentiments. We should manipulate the sentiments against our opponents. We need to dig out dirt and manufacture non-existing ones against our opponents, particularly their arrowhead”.
“Since Saraki who is not a candidate in this election has made himself the lead campaigner, we must hit him from all fronts and with all arrows. Bring up any issue that will poison the minds of the people against him. Create any report, and make him look bad with any information. Link him to any bad thing. We must continue to hit him. He is our target. Once we succeed in disgracing, distracting, and disturbing him, we would have a disorganised PDP.
“When we were saying that he was following revenue allocation due to Kwara from Abuja to Ilorin with aircraft to collect it, we knew it was a lie but the people bought it. When we blamed him for any fault with the past government, we knew what we were doing. When we were talking about 16 years of waste, we wanted it to sink. Don’t allow him to escape from it. We need such ingenuous propaganda”, the governor was quoted to have said.
He also reminded the aides that they will have the cooperation of all government offices and that no dirt will be considered small in staining Saraki. The governor also urged the aides to be creative and put on their thinking caps.
He was quoted to have said “bring up any issue which can be remotely or directly linked to him”, that is about the former governor of the state who served between 2003 to 2011.
It is believed that the recent onslaught against Saraki in which false information and fabricated reports are being peddled against him using unregistered online platforms as well as real and pseudo-social media handles may be the direct consequence of the meeting between the governor and his aides.
It is also believed that a war chest of N1bn at a time when there is hunger in the state and when civil servants are not getting their due payment may motivate the aides to go overboard in discharging the responsibility given to them by their principal.
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