Why Goodluck Jonathan had the right strategy, but left it too late to win Nigeria’s first truly democratic election

If you are going to employ a social influence campaign, that influences through a diffusion model, you need time. It doesn’t work like paid-for marketing.

But more than just the channel choice, the messaging was also a crucial element to this. Jonathan had four main weak points for Buhari’s campaign to target (who ultimately won out):

1. The perceived inertia of being the latest president from a party that had been in power for 16 years.

2. A sense that he had reacted slowly and managed particularly poorly the incident where Boka Haram had kidnapped 200 girls from Chibok; his profile as a president was perceived to be weak – placed under a global and social media spotlight to 'bring back our girls'.

3. The issue of corruption that plagues so many African, East European or Asian countries for years wouldn’t go away.

4. Add to that there are a large number of Nigerians that remain under the poverty line, and it became clear that Buhari had so many angles to leverage.

So Buhari, despite being a former military dictator himself, could position his candidacy around a positive theme of 'change'.

Despite the 'change' agenda, a conventional political campaign was allowed to stay in place for Jonathan for too long. Which was such a missed opportunity – considering that Nigeria is a country whose telecommunications industry had been revolutionised under Jonathan (there are more mobiles in Nigeria that the population of Japan) and where 63 per cent of the population is under 24. The assumption was also allowed to continue within the PDP that social media was still small and not influential. In sharp contrast, Buhari’s campaign grabbed it. It actively recruited followers and built a social media army it could turn on like a tap to undermine Jonathan’s reputation. Jonathan didn’t deploy the very infrastructure and freedom of speech that he had built, until it was too late.

Finally, only when the writing was on the wall for the threat from the Buhari challenge, did Jonathan look for change himself. He looked outside and refreshed his communication advisors. In recent months, he appointed Obi Asika, a creative industries entrepreneur to oversee social media. He appointed London Advertising, a company that flips the concept of comms to be just one brilliant idea that can work in any media any where in the world. London themselves assembled a core virtual team with special skills, this included change consultancy Maverick Planet and Nigeria creative agency Cosse. Off a core idea – they told Goodluck’s story. A successful man with a plan who was needed for Nigeria to reach its future potential.

If Buhari was change. Jonathan had being allowed to be negative continuity. London flipped this into continuity in forward economic momentum. They built a campaign around a theme that implicitly positioned Bahari as someone who would push the economy backwards by comparison.

A raft of work rolled out under the 'keep going forward' idea. London brought out a story and hard hitting factual ads, videos, testimonials and ideas about Nigeria’s economic revolution under Jonathan over the last five years (remarkably, not previously shared by the government with either its people or the wider world). Content and stories were created and designed to be shared on social media. It built new websites and created new social outlets like the Goodluck Times - news and content based platforms designed to populate and circulate dynamic content stories.

Goodluck’s campaign took the lead on You Tube with content like this:

The untold story of how Nigeria’s economy had started to be revolutionised was allowed out:

• Nigeria is now the largest economy in Africa
• Nigeria is the third fastest growing economy in the world
• Every state now has a Federal University
• Hundreds of new schools had been built
• Agricultural production is up 70 per cent with food imports halved
• The trains are running again
• 25,000kms of usable roads versus only 5,000 when he came into office
• Privatisation of the electricity industry and the foundations laid for a stable power supply
• Millions of new jobs created
• How it had almost wiped out Polio and was the African success story of dealing with the threat of Ebola.
• The expansion into new areas – especially the creative and digital industries (e.g. Nollywood the second largest film industry in the world and bigger than USA)
• The empowerment of women in school and in work. A third of his cabinet was female

Whilst Buhari was seen as authoritarian, Jonathan was liked and embraced freedom of speech. Jonathan who was known for his trademark fedora. This was allowed to be brought to light by enabling a social vehicle for young and creative youth to show their support – by recording themselves as part of #hatsforward social idea

At the peak of social media, during the Champions League match between Barcelona and Manchester City, #hatsforward even peaked as the second biggest trending topic ahead of Lionel Messi.

This change in strategy made a difference. Buhari was leading Jonathan by a factor of two to one in social media sentiment in December with his lead peaking in February. By March the sentiment battle had become neck and neck.

Goodluck Jonathan found the right communication strategy to win the democratic election he’d encouraged – but he let it loose too late. A rainy Saturday election day, faulty voting readers and long queues to vote dwindled the turnout. In the end, in the tightest of election battles, there would be more effort put in by those voting for change than those voting for continuity.

The phrase ‘fight for democracy’ is glibly used in the West. In Nigeria it is its recent past. Military coups, the locking up of journalists and the closing down of freedoms are not that far back in its history.

At the previous election, 800 Nigerians were killed. There are 178m people in the democracy that is Nigeria. The introduction of biometric cards (PVCs) and the independent verification of results by the INEC had removed the ability to fix an election. There isn’t any restraint on what the media can say or what people can say on social media. Jonathan’s rivals used it. All changes pushed through under Jonathan’s watch.

The saying goes that 'where Nigeria goes Africa goes'. Fundamentalism and terrorism like Boka Haram thrive on instability. The APC won a free election vs incumbent president GoodLuck Jonathan. It is to Goodluck’s immense credit that he accepted his democratic defeat gracefully - minimising the chance of expected violence that has spilled out before in Nigeria at elections. In stepping down and accepting the democratic vote Jonathan has allowed Nigeria to regroup as a country and “continue to move forwards”. True to a statement Jonathan made at the start of the election “no politician is worth the blood of any Nigerian”. A brand behaviour also taken through to the banners that were displayed on one of the main Jonathan websites, The Goodluck Times: #NoViolence.

The #NoViolence hashtag that was repeated in any social media sent out tweet after tweet as the election was played out. The West could do well to tip its #hatsforward to what has been achieved in Nigeria already and remember - the hard yards on the strategic path it had taken to secure its future as the worlds 6th largest democracy didn’t just start this week. We should admire what all Nigerians have done, including Goodluck Jonathan.

Mark Holden is worldwide head of strategy & planning at PHD Media.