Meet the Nigerian media mogul who helped three presidents get elected
Adebola Williams with newly elected Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo-Addo |
It
would be a remarkable achievement for an entrepreneur of any age, but
at just 31 years old, Nigerian Adebola Williams has already helped three
presidential candidates to election victory.
As
the founder of political communications agency StateCraft Inc, Williams
worked on the campaign that got Goodluck Jonathan elected to the
Nigerian presidency in 2011.
Four
years later he provided his services for the successful election
campaign for Jonathan's rival, current President Muhammadu Buhari.
Then,
completing his hat trick, he worked on the communication strategies
that helped secure the election of Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo in
2016.
Now Williams has now co-written a book, "How to win elections in Africa," detailing his techniques.
So
what's his advice for wining an African election? His strategy sounds
simple: brush up the presidential candidate's image and, crucially,
bolster his popularity among the youth.
Using media for change -- and elections
"Where
we have an edge is that we're young people, and we've worked with young
people for 12 years," he says. "We understand how young people in
Africa think, we understand the key issues."
That understanding has come from building a media empire that goes beyond StateCraft.
Along
with business partner Chude Jideonwo, in 2006 he founded Red Media
Africa, a corporate PR and communication company based in Nigeria, which
has worked with the likes of Facebook, Uber and Intel.
Through parent company Red, they also
own content brand Generation Y!, which runs a number of Nigerian media
platforms, as well as The Future Project, a social enterprise that celebrates outstanding young Africans through its annual Future Awards.
"We
work to change narratives, to shape opinion, to drive a common good and
provoke action," says Williams. "So that is a journey -- using media
for change and using media for elections."
From
an early age, Williams was desperate to be on television, and at the
age of 17 he landed his first gig co-presenting a TV show, "Youth Talk,"
on Nigeria's national NTA Network.
By 19 he was producing his own show, "Nigeria International."
"I just wanted to be in the media space ... because I believe that the media is the best tool to reach people," he says.
Coaching presidents to be media-savvy was a natural progression.
Williams
established StateCraft Inc. after presidential candidate Jonathan's
team reached out to him in 2011 for help with a communication strategy.
Williams was optimistic he was the leader Nigeria needed.
"Jonathan
came through to us as a leader who appreciated the importance of youth
participating in national development on all fronts," he says. "We went
into it hopeful that he was going to be a breath of fresh air."
Helping the opposition
But Williams says he switched sides when he felt the Jonathan administration had fallen short on many areas of governance.
"When
we were then approached by the Buhari campaign in late 2014 ... we
didn't have much of a doubt it was the right thing to do," he says.
Williams
says StateCraft helped "humanize" Buhari's message of change to connect
with the youth.
Through photo shoots and a social media campaign, the
team "softened" his image when needed and "refreshed the firm leader
image" to communicate his stance on corruption and security, he
explains.
Choosing who to represent
Following
President Buhari's election in Nigeria in 2015, Williams was approached
by the two main political parties in Ghana to work his magic.
After
analyzing the current state of Ghana, finding out what the citizens
wanted and meeting the two presidential candidates, Williams chose to
represent Akufo-Addo.
"What we did
in Ghana was present a candidate in the way that connects to young
people in Ghana ... connects to pop culture in Ghana, connects to anger
in Ghana and then direct the people to action, and the action is really
to vote for our candidate."
When it
comes to deciding what makes a great African leader, Williams believes
that African countries need to be more like startups.
"(We
need to) get to a point where those who are in the eye of the decision
have come from an entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial background, who
understand the concept of growing something."
Credit: CNN
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