There is a saying empty barrels make the loudest noise. Just came across what is basically ISWAP TV on YouTube lol. They are showing images of attacks since January with claims the Nigerian military has been defeated. But thats not the purpose of this thread.
The purpose of this thread is to put the spotlight on the regression of the Nigerian military when it comes to PR. Folks, Public relations in the military is no joke. It is an important to communicate with the public. You cannot play games or be complacent.
Being in the Nigerian military is not an easy job, but it can be rewarding to be able to help to protect and inform your country what you are doing. Public relations officers are not necessarily on the front fighting, but they play an essential role in communicating information
..about the sacrifices of our fighting men and women in front and successes being recorded. There used to be a time when we had almost daily footages NAF of airstrikes by the NAF to keep the public abreast and dispel malicious news.
When Amnesty International accused the NAF of killing the kidnapped Chibok girls, the NAF released ISR footages that silenced Amnesty International once and for all..and trust me, it was an emphatic silencing. The footage ended with the words YOU LIED in caps.
Its stunning that in 2021 we are talking about this in past tense and looking at it via retrospective lenses. What happened to the military PR machinery?

..i mean, the purpose of PR is to increase public understanding of the military's role when it comes to national security.
In 2019 the NAF bagged IPRA and APRA awards for communications management for two successive years. The NAF bagged these prestigious International awards as a result of its campaign via the documentary, “Women of War”, which highlights the NAF's initiatives to empower women in
roles traditionally considered to be beyond them due to certain cultural misconceptions.

The movie Eagle Wings was a classic!! Nigerians were proud of their air force not out of patriotic obligations but because they could see why they had reasons to.
I never thought we will see the day Boko Haram outdo the Nigerian military in Public Relations and get away with skewered propaganda and dramatic images. Imagine Boko Haram, running for the border planted a flag..took photos on it and uploaded it in the run...
.and for a week the media was talking about the significance of Boko Haram planting their flag. Last week 27 ISWAP members lost their lives in the midst of a photo session, standing on burning vehicles raising their guns in the air. The media conveniently ignored
..the aftermath and instead focused on the burnt vehicles with superlative sensationalism. Woe betides thee if you try to expose this fallacy. You will be called a govt propagandist by Nigerians, especially social media influencers whose business model revolves around bad news.
The Nigerian military has to go back to the drawing board on its PR machinery. It is essential to do appraisals to make sure that civilian attitude towards the military is confident, and also that there is effective communication between both parties.
I spent the last couple of weeks attacking the attitude of Nigerians in consuming ISWAP propaganda, but come to think of it, can u really blame them? Civilians will get angry if they do not receive extensive information, it is up to PR to explain the true situation on the ground
Imagine the military has killed over 3,000 fighters since January..a staggering number of casualties that ISWAP cannot hope to replace in the short term. The situation is so bad that they are offering 20k and a stimulus packags for families of those who join.
Its still not working. So they have gone HYPER PR. Yet Nigerians are not only completely ignorant about this, they now translate kidnappings and attacks on soft targets as strategic victories and are now driving Nigeria down the cliff through self sabotage.
The Nigerian military should WAKE UP. The NAF in particular has within a span of a few months undone the gains the previous Air Chief made in the area of sensitizing the public and giving Nigerians a genuine cause for hope. A PR machinery that took years to develop.
Unless we win the minds and hearts of Nigerians who see the government as more evil than Boko Haram, insurgents will continue to attack market squars, villages, farms, filling stations, barbing salons, churches, mosques, highways..a million and one places that are
..impossible to defend against. Until attacking soft targets is no longer hold strategic value, but instead only serve to unite Nigerians and their resolve, insurgents will be super crazy to abandon this strategy
..the only other factor that will change the hearts and minds of Nigerians to see how dastardly evil these insurgents are is if the war comes south and for the first time since the insurgency began, Nigerians now live under the threat of instant death or that of their loved
..ones. thankfully that will never happen. As the country gets more partisan and acts of babarity is rewarded rave reviews, Nigerians can as well begin holding placcards on the streets urging ISWAP "We more attacks on innocent women and children to prove Buhari is evil"
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