The old general has achieved an incredible rise in the last few years.
Buhari will become the fifth president of Nigeria on May 29. In the meantime here are five things to learn from his phenomenal rise to the presidency.
1. Integrity is priceless.
Buhari didn’t have the money to finance his campaign on such a large scale, but his integrity worked for him.
Wealthy people backing the party saw that if they worked on him and gave him some good publicity, he could become a viable candidate on the strength of his character. So they backed him and wove their campaign for him around his strongest point.
Integrity was that strongest point. Buhari could never have won because of what he did and said in the past. Those were largely the reasons why he’d run three times and failed.
So this time, his team put out messages in the media telling the people, don’t look at his records and past comments. Look at his integrity. This man is the man to fix our corrupt government. He’s a saint.
Of course Buhari isn’t a saint. But he was the next best thing to what the people wanted. Even when he didn’t personally have the money or the political reputation to rely on, his integrity really helped to make sure his party saw him as a potential president and the electorate thought that things could better if they vote this man to be president.
2. The media is king
The media is so powerful that it can pick up any obscure person and totally turn them into a sensation. All it takes are some consistent messages properly carved in a way that the masses can relate to.
One thing we’ve got to admit is that the media picked up Buhari, cleaned up his image and portrayed him as what he is today. Today people see Buhari as a revolutionary who will save the country from its free fall. These people never thought of Buhari this way before. The media changed that.
3. Sometimes success is a product of chance.
Buhari’s rise to the presidency has got a lot of good fortune in it. Yes he ran thrice before and failed, but this time things just worked together for his good.
First the opposition wanted to form a merger before the 2011 elections and it fell through, but this time they got that right and had enough time to muster a solid campaign.
Meanwhile Jonathan’s popularity was dwindling and a lot of people were fed up with his government. The army was struggling to contain the crisis in the north and people were dying. Corruption was waxing deeply. The people couldn’t see the good works of the government because they were overwhelmed by all the things that appeared bad.
Then the new opposition party needed a strong candidate who could challenge the president in the coming election. All these things paved the way for Buhari to emerge a fourth time to run for president, and it really helped his campaign.
The people who were pissed about Jonathan’s administration now weren’t primarily bothered about whom to vote for. They just wanted to send Jonathan packing, and Buhari showed up as the alternative for the people.
Last time he just couldn’t match Jonathan’s popularity and the landscape was plainly in favour of Jonathan. But this time the landscape shifted in Buhari’s favour. That made a difference.
4. Success is about persistence.
Motivational speakers tell us that if we keep trying and if we don’t give up, we can succeed at whatever we do. Perhaps they’re right.
Here’s a man who’s contested three times already and never ever came close to winning. Yet he chose to run again despite his age. Some others would have stopped trying after the first attempt, but Buhari tried again and again. Maybe for this he deserves to be president.
Buhari’s rise to the presidency supports the principle of persistence and people who’re struggling to achieve something today can look up to that and gain some encouragement and inspiration to keep moving. It’s definitely not easy to keep working on something even when it looks like it’s not ever going to work.
So Buhari’s story is another one that teaches us that it pays to be persistent and that we can achieve a whole lot more than we think if we just keep trying and not give up on the things we believe in.
5. Do things differently.
The thing about Buhari’s campaign this year is that he didn’t just try again. He did things differently. His campaign was run differently. He spoke differently. He acted differently. In fact it looked like he had changed.
Before Buhari was just another old ex-ruler from the past who wants to rule the country again. Worse, he just kept talking about religion and politics in an extreme manner that people resented. He could never have become president with that sort of behaviour even if he tried a million times. He had to change, and he did — at least the people felt that he did.
The point of the story is that we can’t keep doing things the same way and expect to get different, better results. If we want things to change and get better, we’ve got to do things differently. That’s how to make it happen.
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