I
have heard and read quite a few third-party accounts about the background of
President Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan(GEJ). From these and the personal account
of the man himself, it is credible to say that he came from a humble
background. Like most people in his social stratum, he was distinguished only
by his gender (a male child,) but that was a biologically conferred status
common to all the male children from his village.
There
was no special physical endowment to single him out. In marketing language, he
could appropriately be referred to as a commodity of a sort; he was born like
one, grew up like one, went to school, and came out with a doctorate degree.
Even at that level there was nothing extra-ordinary about his achievement and
therefore remained, at best, an educated commodity as the nation could boast of
thousands of men and women with equivalent academic qualification. The decision
to join politics could be said to mark the beginning of the process of moving
from a commodity to a product for GEJ as that gave him the opportunity to be
tested, molded, and fully baked by the political class in their oven. He came
out of the oven becoming a credible product. Like a physical consumer product,
GEJ became a product that can be offered and experienced without any negative
side effect. The product image was like that of a harmless placebo; though you
may not see a radical positive change but you have a feeling that you are well
or will be well by taking the prescription.
That
much could be said of him; the boy is good. Like most people with
humble-village background Jonathan did not lack the needed “home-training”
(with humility and respect for party elders) to package himself and his rising
profile in politics. So, when the time came for his party, the PDP, to choose a
running mate for its governorship candidate in Bayelsa State there was no
opposition against the nomination of the “good boy” Jonathan and he got the
party ticket for the gubernatorial election.
The
good boy moved from a product to a state or regional brand when his party was
declared the winner of the gubernatorial election in his state. The
circumstances that led to the impeachment of the substantive governor
introduced the luck element to GEJ equation and the good boy legitimately
became Goodluck thus the brand was “launched” as Goodluck, by providence, when
he became the governor of Bayelsa State.
Within
a relatively short space of time, he moved from a state governor to become the
running mate to Umaru Yar’Adua, the PDP presidential candidate in the 2007
elections. The party was declared the winner of the elections with Goodluck
moving from a regional brand to a pan-Nigeria or a national brand. The brand
had no problem with brand recognition and awareness nationally as the PDP was
the party in power in majority of the states in the country.
GEJ
behaved himself within the party and his relationship with his boss, President
Yar’Adua was unpolluted. Without overtly being over-ambitious or rocking the
boat, the luck element in his name played itself up again as President Yar Adua
of blessed memory became indisposed beyond the tolerant limit of the
constitution. That ignited the near constitution crisis of 2009 which was
eventually resolved through the so-called “doctrine of necessity” by the
National Assembly. No doubt it had no precedence and could only have been
divine! He moved from Vice President to Acting President of the most populous black
nation in the world all within a few months! Goodluck therefore, became a
natural and legitimate feature of the GEJ brand, not in name only but also in
brand promise. He kept the “goodness” in Goodluck, during the remaining tenure
of his predecessor by not altering Yar’Adua’s policies; these included vision
20-2020, rule of law, the amnesty programme and respect for human right stance
of the late President Yar’Adua.
That
adequately softened the soil for his second term well ahead of the PDP
primaries to elect the party’s flag bearer. As a current elected official at
the federal level, a card carrying and well behaved member of the PDP, GEJ was
eminently qualified politically and constitutionally to seek the party’s
mandate for a full term. However, Northern Elders Forum (NEF) felt
uncomfortable with the rising profile of the man GEJ and decided to play up the
zoning policy of the party. It was aggressively and badly canvassed to the
extent that it became an irritant even to some whom would naturally have
insisted on the application of that policy of PDP. The NEF’s case was further
made worse as they lacked credible candidate with the right public perception
to stand against GEJ. As we know, marketing is all about perception. Even when
the NEF succeeded in coming up with a consensus candidate, the candidate was
inferior to GEJ in the eyes of the public. The outcome of the PDP primaries
vindicated the analysis in my write-up titled “CAMPAIGN THEMES: BETWEEN SLOGANS
AND REALITIES” which was published in BRANDWEEK OF THE NATION of December
24,2010. The pro-zoning arguments paled off in the face of other considerations
such as time to give a minority candidate a chance, the global generational
change in favour of youth in power, and the personality or brand equity of the
candidates.
The
personality factor especially (the good boy perception) gave GEJ overwhelming
victory over all the other candidates at the PDP congress in Abuja. The victory
of the GEJ brand at the PDP primary was an endorsement of the features of “the
boy is good” of the brand of GEJ and that cleared the coast for his victory at
the 2011 elections as none of the other presidential aspirants could match him
in name recognition, and pan-Nigeria acceptance. The stage was, therefore,
properly set for the Goodluck/Sambo campaign roll out. The president did not
take his victory for granted as he made sure he toured all parts of the country
with his transformation gospel.
The
GEJ political journey so far is a good case study that offers a lot of marketing
lessons some of which I would like to touch here below: Any serious brand
builder knows that there is no overnight success in the building process.
Although the rise of GEJ to the status of a mega brand locally and globally was
within a relatively short period, the narration of the journey so far proved a
step by step elevator process. If there is a process that forces you to sow
before you reap it is the brand building one.
The
waiting time may not have been typically long for GEJ; nevertheless there was a
waiting time. Every new brand goes through this phase before the tipping point
is reached and the law of cumulative advantage takes over and pushes the brand
to stardom. It perfectly worked for GEJ.
This
“law” of waiting time is not slow to work when faced with brand equity erosion;
more or less obeying a higher natural law that says that it is easier to
destroy than to build. This can evidently be seen in the political journey of
our dear President. On assumption of office after the 2011 elections, the
president needed to quickly wake up to the fact that he was put there by the
will of God and the votes of the masses, not by a group of godfathers but God
the father; and therefore needed to deal with issues of the country without
fear or favour.
The
landslide election victory set the stage for him to take some positive radical
actions in dealing with the security challenges which is fundamental to other
transformation agenda of the economy, infrastructure, education…etc to send the
right signals to the so- called power seeking cartel that were to later allow
the king to dance naked in the public and compromise the perception/image of
the president. He did not act swiftly thereby allowing the position of strength
he had to be weakened by inactivity and routiness of actions. In other words,
he did not show that he was serious with all those campaign promises which sold
him to the electorate.
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