Few months ago, Nigeria was excited about the news that our President[Goodluck Jonathan] has his own facebook page...one that is purely dedicated at communicating with Nigerians; their aspirations, thier fears, their challenges, their hopes, thier expectations and successes...for us, it was the beginning of a new and better Nigeria...a LISTENING [perhaps, a READING] President...alas...its not what what we thought if the recent news in SR is anything to go by...
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Here is a bit and pieces from SR...
Citizen Report By Olumide Joseph
It may look like an official government website but click on BLOG at the upper left hand side of the page and you come to paid political advertising for the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in 2011 campaign - even though the President and his handlers are telling the world that Mr. President is yet to make up his mind.
You’ve just reached “Rethink Nigeria” - a front for a Branding Agency (marketing company) known as INK Brand Agency aka Bluelabs Branding. What is not known is the main link between the Presidency and Blue Brand but what is quite clear is that the brains behind the project Facade are smart internet savvy Nigerians.
Chukwuemeka Okechuku jnr is the creative director of the brand agency and Femi Odewunmi is the managing director, they have an office in Lagos on 188, Moshood Olugbani Street Victoria Island Lagos.
Navigate to the bottom left. There are two Rethink Nigeria badges. (Rethink Nigeria is the group linked to the GEJ campaign Team). Series of events are being planned by RTN and the Goodluck for President Team; they have also set up consultative teams in the Diaspora with the United Kingdom being marked as a strategic location where a series of “networking” dinners are being planned.
Now navigate on the official Facebook page speculated to be managed by Reno Omokri, a San Francisco-based Nigerian media consultant in collaboration with two Senior Advisers in the Goodluck kitchen cabinet. Reno’s main link in the presidency is a senior SSA to Goodluck Jonathan.
A very dependable source in the presidency confirms that Goodluck does not even know how to sign on to his Facebook page not to mention managing a Facebook account. The source confirmed that a senior special adviser is now jokingly referred to as the “senior special manager on Facebook affairs.” The source credits the inconsistency in the messages on the President’s Facebook account and policy to the fact that the page is macro managed.
All the President gets to see are print outs after updates have been made - if you check the time that updates are posted and the itinerary of the President, he would have to be in two places at a time to be able to make a Facebook update”
If you visit President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s Facebook page and navigate to the left upper box and a link will take you to RTN. The same Rethink Nigeria folks set up another Facebook page with 250 members, they also have a Twitter page, if you visit the Twitter link of RTN it is linked to the Goodluck Jonathan Twitter account recently opened by his team and the same Goodluck Jonathan account is managed by the same people who manage www.votegoodluck.com
Now the spokesperson to Nigeria’s President Ima Niboro Wednesday 18th August 2010 in a response to a Reuters story stated that the Nigerian President is not decided on running for the office of the presidency. The question is, if the President is not running, why is the official page of the Nigerian government linked to a website calling on Nigerians to vote for Goodluck Jonathan, did the president’s enemies hack into the Nigerian government official page?
If the “hackers” are the ones who are planting campaign materials on the official page of the Nigerian government how can we be sure they won’t be able to hack into the official website of the Independent National Electoral Commission (http://www.inecnigeria.org/ ) and falsify election results in 2011?