Campbell in handshake with Buhari at the Lagos event. Source Campbel’s Twitter page
Buhari contracting Campbell at $1 million for PR Strategy for 2019 election
Handlers of President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election campaign have concluded arrangements to hire popular Model and self-styled Public Relations activist, Naomi Campbell at the cost of $1 million USD for the re-election communications strategies, Discover African News has learnt. That is about N366 million.
Campbell is just one of many communications strategists that the Buhari’s men are considering to use for strategic communications and campaigns for the election, our source added.
However, it is not certain if the jarring negative reactions of many Nigerians towards the meeting of Buhari and Campbell on Thursday in Lagos will thwart the plans on ground but Campbell has started feeling involved in the whole exercise.
“The plan is to bring in Campbell. She is popular and she has followership…the president was so happy to meet her as a result of how she has been packaged and sold to him. But the reaction (of Nigerians following her meeting with Buhari at the Lagos event) is something else”, a presidency source said.
Photos of President Buhari which Campbell shared on twitter seemed not to have gone down well with Nigerians.
The Presidency has denied inviting Campbell to join Buhari’s tour in Lagos after the deluge of criticism against her invitation. However, Campbell had gleefully tweeted her photograph with Buhari in Lagos yesterday saying: “ Was a pleasure to meet His Excellency The President of The Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari to the launch of Eko Atlantic. HERE FOR ARISE FASHION WEEK ”
Buhari’s aide Bashir Ahmad @BashirAhmaad tweeted: “For the sake of clarity, President @MBuhari didn’t invite Ms. Naomi Campbell to any event during his 2-day visit to Lagos State. They only met at the Eko Atlantic City while Mr. President was touring the project, and she requested to take photos with him.
Campbell, who tweets on the handle @NaomiCampbell has started retweeting some of the APC and Presidency tweets. That might be a pointer to demonstrate her new interest in the activities Nigerian government.
Preparatory for the 2015 election, the All Progressive Congress (APC) hired a political consulting firm, the AKPD, to help Muhammadu Buhari unseat Goodluck Jonathan. The AKPD is founded by David Axelrod, an ally of former President Barack Obama.
The Chicago-based AKPD, denied working with Buhari and the APC till 2015 elections, but admitted to doing work on behalf of Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) till 2014.