The greatest salesman is not the “expert” who sells a good and high quality product to his clientele but he who re-brands and repackages a bad product and gives it an attractive exterior for (at least) a temporary admiration and patronage of the consumers.

But when you have a bad product and a bad salesman, it is undoubtedly a double tragedy.

The above scenario aptly describes the ridiculous pair of Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida and the Director-General of his 2011 presidential campaign organisation – Dr. Raymond Dokpesi.

By choosing Dokpesi as the DG of his campaign organization, IBB has, ab-initio, lost the race for the presidency. I am not querying IBB for not procuring the services of David Axelrod – President Barack Obama’s campaign strategist and miracle-man-or even our home grown Senator Joseph Zwingina who was Director General  of MKO Abiola’s campaign organization in 1993. But Dokpesi is a billion miles off what a campaign strategist should be.

And so the “great salesman” stands on the podium and with a microphone to his mouth, blares,” President Goodluck Jonathan is after my life, he wants to kill me. A vote for Jonathan is a vote for anarchy. It is a call for (the) disintegration of Nigeria…”

For the “master strategist” and the DG of the IBB 2011 presidential campaign organization, what a bizarre and counter-productive strategy to flag off a campaign of such presidential magnitude.

Dokpesi should return to the drawing board, abandon his 18th century strategies and embrace modern political campaign strategies. The American electoral process is a beauty to behold. With a gruesome energy sapping party primaries spanning over 18months including pre-primary campaigns, the American democratic process is but one step short from perfection, and that is just the human factor.

Dokpesi should know that speculatory and conjecturally fabricated fable-oriented fantasies are a figment of a self-imposed schizophrenic mind. It is the symptom of a deep seated frustration and fear of impending defeat and disaster.

To say that  Jonathan wants to kill him, I think, is the height of frustration and wild propaganda to hoodwink the peace loving Nigerian populace. Even Sigmund Freud, the world’s greatest Austrian psychologist/psychoanalyst, would not have been able to glean a strain of violence from the genes of the gentle president, talk less of a murderous instinct in the president.

Jonathan has an impeccable record of untainted humility, a sound and balanced mind not easily ruffled and agitated by even a tumultuous environment. He is not cast of a violent mould.

His unique methods of handling Gov. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha’s case in Bayelsa State and the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua are too recent to gloss over. Most Nigerians wanted the vice president to edge out his boss by the various constitutional means available but  Jonathan was too full of the milk of human kindness to do so.

Even when it was so obvious that the Chief of Army Staff was taking direct orders from the late president’s wife, Jonathan refused to fire him. And Nigerians know that  Jonathan was hewed from the finest of human stock.

Dokpesi should advise his boss to call off this mad ambition to avoid the consequences of a massive bottled-up anger being unleashed by the Nigerian people on Babangida. Babangida is a poisonous material; bottled and marketed for sale. Nigerians should avoid Babangida like the dreaded bubonic plaque. Can Nigerians trust a Maradona, an evil genius and a master dribbler?

Nigeria will surely remain one whether the evil genius and his salesman wish the contrary. Nigeria will surely survive.  A word is enough for the wise.

* NANAGHAN lives in Lagos            E-mail: [email protected]