AbdulMutallab-gate: How Nigeria Can Manage The Attendant Image Crisis

Olaseeni Durojaiye-

The way out of the situation is to be calm and not panic or complain. You keep projecting the good things about Nigeria , like our values and the good things that we stand for. You also need to play up our heroes and their great achievements in different fields of human endeavours. And you keep repeating it over and again until it sinks in.
Meanwhile, while all that is being done, you keep letting the US government know that the government and people of Nigeria are not happy being listed as a terrorist state. It is important to do so in a calm, confident and diplomatic way; not by complaining or by blowing hot. There is the need to make them realize that is not part of our ways of life or belief.
Dr. Phil Osagie
CEO
JSP Communications
 
It is definitely a PR crisis. The young man’s misadventure presents us with colossal reputation damage. Nigeria has been labeled a nation of fraudsters and corrupt people; to add that we are a terrorist state is like an icing on the cake of the terrible image.
Managing the crisis requires a holistic approach. It is beyond the Ministry of Information and Communication. This is no time for purple patching or gathering spin doctors to spin stories in your favour  even though there is a saying that a lie that is repeatedly told assumes the status of a truth.
The road map should include some actionable objectives built into the strategy.
PR is beyond making up stories in the media. There is the need for verifiable proof points. When you say you have put so and so together, it must be verifiable. The people must be carried along; the people should be carried along because they are the ones who will talk more about the solutions that were put in place.

Bolaji Okusaga
Lead Strategist and
Head   Consultant
The Quadrant Company
 
This never had to be an image crisis at all but it has turned to one because of the total misunderstanding of crisis management on the part of the Federal Government. That is why information management and communication is so important.
If I got the brief what would I have done? Begin by emphasizing the positive sides of Nigerians. As a law abiding Nigerian, Mutallab Snr. took the proactive action of contacting the US government. If they had been up to the task they would have ensured Mutallab Jnr. Never got on that plane.
Secondly, I will point out the fact that this is a freak occurrence. Nigerians are not suicide bombers. There is no recorded precedent. Then I will play up the fact that the blame for the radicalization of Farouk AbdulMutallab lies in the UK where he schooled. We will make them know what we know in the country that educated and well heeled Nigerians don’t get involved in religious extremism. That is for al majiris. This is a freak occurrence and it doesn’t follow any known pattern.”

Toni Kan Onwordi
Lead Strategist
Radiate PR
 
I think there’s one thing to be done and which has been done: Show that the maladjusted guy was recruited outside the shores of Nigeria. The degree of maladjustment could be gleaned from his Facebook entries.
The best reputation recovery effort would be for Mr. President to openly denounce terrorism and open discussions with Obama to get us out of the ‘Countries of Interest’ list. We are currently being perceived as an unserious nation. Our Senators and House of Representatives members are just idling away getting fat pay for doing absolutely nothing.

Director of Corporate Communications of a Lagos-based Insurance firm who prefers anonymity. 

Our listing as a terrorist nation is not justifiable on the scale of current status, but on the strength of the possibilities in the face of a careless management of symptoms.
I think it is pre-emptive and should be easy to reverse once the people concerned are able to genuinely assure themselves and the Americans of our will and ability to contain and terminate the observable virus on time and in full.

Demola Adedoyin
Publicity Secretary Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN)
 
What is all these noise about America putting us on any list?
And what is all the noise our senators and governors are making? It’s because America is one of the places where they spend our money! They buy houses there and send their children to schools there instead of building better schools here! They even go to die there instead of building world class hospitals here!
All these talk about reputation recovery and perception management is rubbish. The best reputation and perception management is to do the right thing at all times.
We don’t need leadership that cares about America, but leadership that truly cares about Nigeria and our people. We need leadership that does the right thing in the interest of our own people. What America is doing is in the interest of her own people. They don’t care about us Nigerians. We need leadership that act in the interest of our people!

Muyiwa Kayode
CEO
USP Brand Management
  It is not dignifying to list Nigeria as a country of interest but it is not worth crying over like a little idiot. It is good enough that they have not said we are state sponsors of terrorism.  It is also no doubt that we are a security risk with all the sectarian violence, Boko Haram, the violence in the Niger Delta, the kidnappings and the latest violence in Jos, Plateau State .
However, it is a diplomatic battle which we should go into with our heads and shoulders raised high. It requires that we get our diplomacy right but then, how do we get it right when the chief diplomat of the country,  the President, Umaru Yar’Adua is not around. In diplomacy, equals talk to equals. Obama will not call the Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan. The Vice President can only talk to Joe Biden who will tell him that he will relay it to President Obama. If he did, who will Obama call? We should not cry to them to get us off the list because they will not.  
The right people to talk should get talking. They should make the American Government realize that the young man was not brainwashed in Nigeria . He was brainwashed in the Britain . He was not equipped with the explosives in Nigeria: that happened in Yemen .
Why did they not list Britain as a country of interest when Richard Reid, the shoe bomber tried the same thing that Umar AbdulMultallab did?
The number one terrorist in the whole world is a Saudi citizen. A good number of those that carried out the September 11, 2001 attack were from Saudi Arabia , yet the US government didn’t list Saudi Arabia as terrorist nation because Saudi Arabia is a strong ally of the United States.  
Steve Ayorinde
Editor, Daily Punch