#GrowNigeria the 38 day campaign that shook the nation [i]

Lagos Traffic Will Not Kill Somebody

It was one of the lowest points in the year, and I really craved for something to excite me. Work became increasingly drab, and Lagos traffic did not help matters.

My daily commute to work on the Third Mainland Bridge, the longest of three bridges connecting Lagos Island to the mainland became times of personal reflection and soul-searching; it also made me realise how broken Nigeria’s system had become, looking at the excessive traffic on this highway. I kept wondering why it had become so difficult to fix this much touted “Africa’s 7th largest economy”.

I also remembered with anger, that the present government in Lagos had campaigned that if we “Align Lagos with the centre” and voted for the same party in Lagos and in Abuja, we would find solutions to most of the problems facing the state.

#GrowNigeria the 38 day campaign that shook the nation [i] ece-auto-gen

That was in 2014, and almost 4 years later, there we were, still struggling to use the same bridges and roads that are the legacy of Nigeria’s past military rulers. I grew increasingly uncomfortable of whining and silent complaints. I promised myself that if the opportunity ever presented itself to be a part of a national campaign that ends our hallmark of incompetence and finger-pointing, I would dive in and do my part to save Nigeria from a promised change that had delivered no real substance.

An Opportunity Beckons

The opportunity presented itself in August when my friend Ayobami Adekojo invited me for a meeting to discuss the presidential campaign of Nigeria’s Senate President, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki. The meeting came as a surprise because before that time I had never met any member of his team and only knew of some work being done by his media team through friends. The meeting gave me an opportunity to see beyond what I had followed in the media about the man.

At the first meeting, I met Femi Odewunmi, the team leader whom we all came to call FO. He gave me resources to study on my own and make up my mind if I wanted to join the team. I knew Ayobami to be a political strategist and a, our paths had crossed in 2015 when my partners and I were working on the Gubernatorial campaign of Seyi Makinde in Oyo State; Ayobami was working for the then PDP candidate Teslim Folarin. I had also done some work for FO’s agency INK Business Design on the Goodluck Jonathan campaign back in the days and knew immediately that this team was a formidable one.

The offer was for me to join the strategy team, but I was doubtful about the seriousness of it all, as I was in a room of young people, wondering if any of our strategies would ever be adopted by the old men politicians I assumed would be the ones running the ship. Within a few days of joining the team, I would be in for a rude shock to discover that the team I had met earlier were the “old men” and there were no pot-bellied Oga-at-the top middlemen to report to.

It was a mean lean team driven by youthful energy and vibrancy led by FO, and I looked forward to what magic we would make together. What followed were 38 days like I had never experienced before; of sleepless nights, early flights and countless hours of standing on your feet throwing around ideas before they hit paper or a design screen.

I had worked in the music industry for over five years, and project managed album releases and concerts for some of Africa’s biggest music stars, but even I was not ready for the level of work that was required by a client who asked for only one thing: excellence. I half-expected that after all the initial rush, this politician would live true to those infamous ideals of “anyhow” Nigerian politics; but not Alpha, as we came to call Dr Bukola Saraki; for this man, work was to be done to the best of standards, and this filled me with renewed passion and excitement.

Grow Nigeria ece-auto-gen

The long hours would come to fill the emptiness that had enveloped me for the past months, and the adrenaline rush was enough to drive me with new-found purpose. FO’s calls at odd hours of the day became a norm, and it was not strange to hear, after working till 11 pm on one day, that you had to catch a 7-am flight out of Lagos the next. Dr Saraki had entrusted us with the task of driving the message behind his vision to bring inclusive growth to all Nigerians. We were not going to fail.

How we came about the #GrowNigeria Message

So we got to work polling, interviewing and trying to get the pulse of the nation. We did not want to work in an echo chamber, believing that all Nigerians were tired of the present government and would jump at any opportunity to put another person at the helm of affairs.

We asked the people what issues were most important to them, what challenges of governance had the most impact on them and their daily lives, where had government failed them and what and who could provide a solution. From the mountain load of feedback we got from everyday Nigerians, we realised that poverty and economic turmoil were top on people’s minds and joining this with Dr Saraki’s vision to bring inclusive growth to all Nigerians we crafted a message and movement to #GrowNigeria

An exciting story must be told of how we came about #GrowNigeria. As the resident “OBJ” (a nickname I had been given by the team because I was always writing) I started creating possible campaign slogans based on the feedback we had gotten from the field and I spent days trying to capture the essence of our message in two words or less. The first few ones I got were bland I must confess, I mean who was going to align with #NigeriaFirst?

I must have become too exposed to Donald Trump’s brand of nationalism or the constant pecking at keyboards was getting to me. One morning though, FO after a meeting with the candidate, suggested that the message should be anchored on Growth and we spent hours going back and forth arguing on the best way to capture Growth in a way that would resonate with a middle-class Lagosian or a trader in Aba.

Some of us argued that the idea of growth might sound too much like a fancy economic term and were ready to shoot it down, but after a simple exercise of asking each other what we all were praying for and working towards, we all came to the realisation that we all wanted to grow in our various stations. We wanted to be better, we all wanted an increase. Growth was the underlying reason why we were all braving Lagos traffic each morning trying to improve our hustle.

Executing the message and driving the movement were the tough parts, but luckily we were working with a candidate who trusted young people to deliver and who himself was in tune with global trends and modern tools. Ideas could go from ideation to approval in minutes as there were no red tapes and middlemen to stifle the creativity of a team whose average age fell below 30. With the core team comprising of planners and strategists like Kelechi, Sam, Enniye, we were always ready to move.

We created multimedia social multimedia content along with fact-checked Op-eds for distribution via multiple media platforms to provide information and counter false narratives; all this without having to send countless approval seeking emails or travelling for needless meetings.

The candidate trusted us to interpret his vision to the target audience, and this confidence paid off as within a short while, Nigerians became endeared to the message. In fact, what started as political messaging began to serve the dual tool of helping to clear preconceived notions the electorate had of Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki.

Written by Edward Israel-Ayide.

Edward Israel-Ayide provides marketing and communications strategy for political candidates and creative professionals. He is on Twitter @wildeyeq