Former Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has disclosed how a carefully crafted two-pronged communication strategy helped the All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Bola Tinubu secure victory in the 2023 general elections.
Mohammed revealed this in his newly inaugurated book, Headlines and Soundbites: Media Moments that Defined an Administration, which documents his experiences while serving under the late President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ahead of the 2023 polls, Buhari had directed ministers, permanent secretaries and heads of agencies to refrain from abandoning their official duties for political campaigns, warning that violations would attract sanctions.
Mohammed, however, said that while he adhered to the directive, he deployed a campaign approach that did not rely on rallies or political rhetoric, but rather on defending facts, documenting government performance and countering what he described as deliberate misinformation.
According to him, opposition parties at the time promoted a dominant narrative that the APC-led Buhari administration had failed and therefore had no achievements to campaign on.
He said the claim was neither factual nor grounded in reality, but part of a coordinated effort to discredit the government and weaken the APC and Tinubu’s chances at the polls.
“As the popular aphorism goes: Say it loud, say it often, and it no longer matters if it’s true,” Mohammed wrote.
“Fully aware of the insidious nature of this campaign, I adopted a two-pronged strategy: to systematically showcase the administration’s achievements and to decisively counter the opposition’s misleading narrative.”
He explained that exactly 130 days to the general elections, on October 18, 2023, his ministry launched the PMB Administration Scorecard Series (2015–2023).
The initiative, he said, was designed to present verified accomplishments of the Buhari administration during a politically critical period.
Under the programme, ministers presented evidence-based reports of achievements in their respective sectors, followed by question-and-answer sessions where journalists interrogated the claims and sought clarifications.
To ensure wide reach, Mohammed said his ministry deployed a comprehensive communication strategy across traditional and digital media platforms.
He further disclosed that on February 22, 2023, just three days before the elections, the ministry unveiled additional legacy tools, including a documentary, testimonial series, a compendium of Buhari’s achievements in print and electronic formats, as well as a legacy portal.
The portal, he said, served as a digital repository containing all scorecard presentations, accessible globally.
Mohammed described the scorecard initiative as one of the most innovative and impactful electioneering strategies in recent Nigerian political history.
“It provided Nigerians with direct, unfettered access to the achievements of the outgoing administration,” he said.
“It offered detailed, ministry-by-ministry presentations and highlighted concrete policy achievements, infrastructural developments and sectoral reforms.”
He argued that the initiative reshaped campaign dynamics by forcing the opposition to abandon claims of total failure and instead respond to documented records.
“By placing verifiable facts directly in the hands of citizens, it compelled the opposition to constantly play catch-up,” Mohammed said.
He added that opposition parties were left largely on the defensive, resorting to personal attacks rather than issue-based engagement.
The former minister stressed that the success of the approach lay in its subtlety and reliance on verifiable facts rather than overt political grandstanding.
According to him, anchoring the campaign on documented performance helped the APC reconnect with undecided voters and neutralise what he described as deliberate misinformation.