Yushau A. Shuaib
“When a sponsored attack song backfires, it reveals everything about the sponsors — and nothing damaging about the target.”
A brief disclosure is necessary before I proceed. In December 2018, Jamilu Gwamna — then Managing Director of the Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) — personally approved the removal and reinstallation of electric poles to support the expansion of the PRNigeria Centre in Kano. That gesture of institutional goodwill remains unforgettable. His spokesperson, Ibrahim Sani Shawai, who still serves in that role today, has also been a long standing professional colleague. I state this up front because transparency about relationships is the foundation of credible commentary, and what I am about to say directly touches on the political contest in which Gwamna is now a participant.
I must also clarify my relationship with Isa Ali Pantami. I have closely monitored the evolution of Nigeria’s digital economy ecosystem since his days as Director General of NITDA and throughout his tenure as Minister of Communications and Digital Economy. That monitoring led to active promotion of legitimate achievements and a sustained effort to counter malicious narratives directed at him. It also resulted in a book documenting his trials and triumphs. My engagement with Pantami has always been based strictly on public service record — nothing more, nothing less.
For more than two years, Pantami has openly signalled his intention to contest the governorship of Gombe State. There were early indications that Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya might not remain neutral in the APC primary. I raised this concern with the Governor’s spokesperson, Ismaila Uba Misilli, during the launch of Pantami’s books in Abuja in January 2024. Misilli consistently reassured me that the Governor would be fair to all aspirants.
When Shawai later informed me that Jamilu Gwamna would also be contesting after securing the APC ticket, I did what fairness required: I told him directly that any press release or material his candidate issued would be published on our platforms at no cost — the same courtesy extended to Pantami, who had paid his dues in national service. Equity demanded nothing less.
This week, precisely last Thursday’s evening after Shawai discussed a release and a new photograph of his candidate with me — which we published immediately — a video began circulating less than twenty four hours later.
In it, APC Hausa praise singer Kahutu Rarara did not merely criticise Pantami; he accused him of drug addiction, alleged corruption, and issued thinly veiled threats of referral to anti corruption agencies. He then, in the same breath, lavished praise on Jamilu Gwamna, the APC governorship candidate. The sponsorship was not implied. It was announced.
The response was swift, fierce, and deeply instructive. Clerics who had previously criticised Pantami came out in his defence. Scholars who had held reservations issued statements of solidarity. Politicians in opposing camps expressed sympathy. Social media influencers with no particular allegiance condemned Rarara in terms sharper than anything he had directed at his target. Without spending a kobo or uttering a word in his own defence, Pantami gained more followers, more sympathisers, and more vocal supporters in forty eight hours than any conventional campaign event could have delivered.
The attack produced the exact opposite of its intended effect. This is not a coincidence. It is a textbook case of demarketing by incompetence — a lesson written in real time for anyone willing to read it.
I have made this point repeatedly in professional settings, and it bears restating with the specificity this episode demands. There is a fundamental difference between publicity, where noise and trend matter, and public relations, where substance and credibility matter. Many politicians and campaign managers behave as though the two are interchangeable — assuming that anyone with a large audience or a talent for generating noise is automatically a useful campaign instrument. This is a costly error.
Publicity measures reach and volume. Public relations measures credibility and consequence.
A praise singer with hundreds of thousands of followers can generate trend after trend, but if his credibility is already compromised, every trend he generates carries the stench of that compromise. The audience does not simply receive the message; it filters it through what it already knows about the messenger. When a campaign instrument is perceived as mercenary, every message it carries is contaminated.
Kahutu Rarara is not an artist in the tradition of musicians who use their platforms to advocate justice or accountability. He is, by his own pattern, a hired tongue — available to praise whoever pays and to attack whoever his current patron designates. He has performed this function against former Kano Governors Ibrahim Shekarau and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, among others. In each case, those he vilified were, in other seasons, recipients of his flattery when patronage flowed in their direction. Nigerians are not unaware of this. His credibility as an independent voice is precisely zero. That is why there can be no basis for comparing a global musical icon like Davido with Rarara after their public clash in June 2026 over Nigeria’s kidnapping crisis.
Any campaign strategist who deployed him for this assignment either failed to conduct the most basic perception audit or conducted one and ignored it. Either way, the professional failure belongs to the architects of the strategy — not to Rarara, who simply did what Rarara does.
While publicity chases attention, public relations earns trust. And the most damaging form of demarketing is when an opposition relies on a weak, hate-driven campaigner who resorts to ignorance, arrogance, and indecency. Such tactics almost always backfire, instantly boosting public sympathy and solidarity for the reputable competitor — without them spending a single penny. That is exactly what we are witnessing in the case of Rarara’s attack song against Pantami.
Yushau A. Shuaib is the author of “Pantami: Trials & Triumphs of a Digital Economy Maestro.” Email: yashuaib @yashuaib.com