By Chris Agbedo
Words matter. In the theatre of political communication, they are the pigments with which public actors paint meaning across the canvas of national discourse. Through them, leaders connect dots and verses, dots of policy, verses of persuasion, until a coherent picture of governance emerges. Citizens read that picture not only to understand what their leaders are doing but also to measure whether those leaders mean what they say. Yet words possess an inconvenient habit: they remember. They linger long after the moment of utterance has passed, quietly waiting in the archive of public discourse. When circumstances change, they return sometimes gently, sometimes with the ferocity of a boomerang. And when they do, they demand explanation. This is the broader significance of the recent controversy surrounding Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to the President on Policy Communication, following his appearance on the international programme Head to Head. The interview itself might have been another routine episode of political sparring, i.e., an assertive host confronting a government spokesperson with uncomfortable questions about policy, statistics, and public perception. Such encounters are hardly unusual in global media.
What transformed the episode into a moment of national reflection was a single explanation offered in response to questions about Bwala’s earlier criticisms of President Bola Tinubu. Confronted with statements he had made while aligned with the opposition, he dismissed them as the work of a “hired salesman” engaged to de-market a political rival. The phrase has since reverberated across Nigeria’s public conversation. Not merely because it acknowledged the rough-and-tumble nature of political rhetoric, but because of the deeper implications embedded within it. In attempting to explain away past statements, the metaphor unintentionally exposed a logical paradox that now defines the controversy. If yesterday’s denunciations were the scripts of a hired salesman, why should today’s praises be interpreted differently?
Political metaphors are rarely innocent. They carry assumptions about how the speaker understands his own role and the nature of the political enterprise he inhabits. The metaphor of salesmanship is particularly a self-destructive missile that devoured its author. A salesman’s duty is not to truth but to the product. He highlights virtues, downplays flaws, and persuades the audience that what he offers is superior to competing alternatives. Whether he personally believes in the product is secondary; his professional obligation is simply to sell. When a political communicator describes his past rhetoric as the work of such a salesman, he effectively reframes political speech as a commercial transaction. Words become marketing materials, crafted to achieve a predetermined objective rather than to express conviction. The problem, however, is that metaphors rarely remain confined to the past. Once invoked, they inevitably illuminate the present. If the earlier criticisms of Tinubu were merely salesmanship, the audience is left to wonder whether the current defence of Tinubu represents anything more than a different marketing assignment. Thus the explanation that was intended to dissolve a contradiction instead amplified it.
The controversy illustrates a familiar phenomenon in political discourse: the boomerang effect. Words launched in one political direction eventually circle back, returning with unexpected force.
In earlier periods of political history, such boomerangs travelled slowly. Statements made in speeches or interviews might fade from public memory, preserved only in scattered newspaper archives. The digital age has changed that dynamic entirely. Today, every tweet, interview, and speech forms part of a permanent record. When contradictions arise, they can be retrieved within seconds and juxtaposed with current statements. The interview that sparked the controversy demonstrated precisely how this archive functions. Past remarks were placed alongside present explanations, creating a stark contrast between what was once said and how it was now being interpreted. The result was less a debate about policy than an examination of credibility. And in the courtroom of public discourse, credibility is the currency that determines whether arguments carry weight.
What makes the salesman explanation so damaging is its internal logic. By acknowledging that earlier criticisms were professionally motivated exaggerations, the communicator inadvertently invites the public to apply the same logic to present statements. If political speech can be outsourced as a marketing service, then every subsequent statement becomes suspect. Praise may simply represent the mirror image of previous criticism—two sides of the same promotional coin.
The irony is profound. The metaphor that attempted to protect the present from the past ends up dissolving the boundary between them. In effect, the speaker tells his audience: “Do not take my earlier words seriously; they were part of my job.” But the audience inevitably replies: “Then why should we take your current words seriously?” Thus the defence collapses under its own reasoning. It is the rhetorical equivalent of a salesman confessing that he once promoted defective products because he was paid to do so—only to expect customers to trust his latest pitch.
Political language carries weight because it shapes how citizens interpret the character of leaders and the legitimacy of institutions. When accusations of corruption, incompetence, or authoritarianism are made, they are not merely tactical phrases; they are moral claims. To later dismiss such claims as marketing rhetoric trivialises their seriousness. It suggests that even the most severe allegations may simply be tools of partisan competition. This realisation damages more than the credibility of a single communicator. It undermines the entire ecosystem of political discourse. When citizens begin to suspect that accusations are merely strategic exaggerations and praises merely strategic promotions, trust erodes. Political speech becomes indistinguishable from advertising copy—dramatic, persuasive, but fundamentally transactional. Democratic debate cannot thrive under such conditions.
The “hired salesman” explanation also reveals a deeper feature of contemporary political culture: the increasing normalisation of transactional allegiance. In many political systems, actors frequently migrate between parties or ideological camps. Such movement is not inherently problematic; political beliefs evolve, alliances shift, and individuals reassess their positions. The difficulty arises when such transitions occur without intellectual explanation. If someone once described a political figure in the harshest possible terms and later becomes that figure’s most energetic defender, the public naturally expects an account of what changed. Did new evidence emerge? Did circumstances alter the analysis? Did reflection lead to reconsideration? When the explanation offered is simply that earlier criticisms were professional obligations, the implication is that conviction was never central to the discourse in the first place. And that implication proves corrosive.
The controversy also underscores the heightened demands placed upon political communicators in an era of relentless scrutiny. International platforms, in particular, operate within a culture that privileges documented evidence over rhetorical assertion. Statistics, reports from human rights organisations, economic indicators, and archived statements all form part of the evidentiary terrain. A communicator who approaches such a forum armed primarily with campaign-style talking points risks encountering precisely the kind of confrontation that unfolded during the interview. This does not mean that every spokesperson must prevail in every debate. But it does mean that preparation, factual familiarity, and intellectual clarity are indispensable. In the absence of those qualities, the conversation can quickly shift from policy defence to credibility examination.
Perhaps the most troubling consequence of the episode is the potential erosion of public trust in official communication. Government spokespeople occupy a unique position within democratic systems. They are expected to defend policy while simultaneously providing reliable information. When such voices appear to operate as rhetorical contractors rather than principled advocates, the credibility of official narratives suffers. Citizens become reluctant to accept explanations or assurances, assuming they may simply represent the latest version of political marketing. Over time, this suspicion can undermine governance itself. Policies that require public cooperation – economic reforms, security strategies, social programmes – depend heavily on credible communication. If that credibility evaporates, the distance between government and governed widens.
Ultimately, the controversy surrounding Bwala’s remarks offers a cautionary lesson about the enduring power of language. Political actors often treat words as temporary instruments—tools to be deployed aggressively during moments of partisan contestation. But words are not disposable. They accumulate, interact, and form patterns that attentive audiences eventually recognise. Each statement becomes a dot on the canvas of political communication. Over time, those dots connect into narratives that define reputations. When contradictions disrupt the pattern, the entire image changes.
The metaphor of the boomerang is therefore particularly apt. Words thrown into the public arena rarely disappear. They travel outward, sometimes gathering momentum, before returning to their origin. When they return, they often carry sharper edges than when they were first released. In the present controversy, the phrase “hired salesman” served precisely that function. Intended as an explanation, it became the boomerang that transformed a difficult interview into a broader reflection on credibility. For in the ears of many listeners, the phrase suggested that both past criticism and present praise might belong to the same rhetorical profession – one that appears less anchored in conviction than in the shifting Terms and Conditions of “Stomach Infrastructure.” In the Nigerian political lexicon, stomach infrastructure has long served as a sardonic shorthand for the politics of material inducement: loyalty purchased with access, patronage, or proximity to power. When political speech begins to sound indistinguishable from this transactional culture, the audience naturally suspects that rhetoric itself has become another commodity in the marketplace of survival. Under such conditions, words cease to function as moral commitments. They become negotiable instruments, adjusted to suit the economic or political environment of the speaker. Yesterday’s fiery denunciation becomes today’s glowing endorsement, not because the underlying facts have changed, but because the incentives surrounding the speaker have shifted. The rhetoric follows the stomach, not the conscience. The damage inflicted by such a perception is not merely personal; it is reputational in a broader, sociological sense. In many African communicative cultures, social face – the symbolic capital of honour, credibility, and public respect, is a prized possession.
When a public figure casually frames his own past words as professional exaggerations, he risks eroding that symbolic capital. The audience begins to interpret every subsequent statement through the prism of transactional motivation. In effect, the communicator becomes trapped within the very metaphor he invoked. If speech is merely a service rendered under the contractual logic of stomach infrastructure, then the public is left wondering whether the latest defence of policy or praise of leadership is another installment in the same commercial arrangement. And once that suspicion takes root, credibility begins to evaporate with remarkable speed. The hired salesman then discovers, rather painfully, that the damage is largely self-inflicted. As an Ezikeọba proverbial lore captures it with biting clarity: “Nwa wor onwe ye sị ne ọ bụ ọha wor ye”—someone deliberately wrecks his own house and then turns around to accuse the community of demolition. The proverb warns against the human temptation to externalise blame for self-authored misfortune. In the arena of political communication, reckless words often become the very tools of one’s undoing. When they return as boomerangs, the public is merely witnessing the collapse, not orchestrating it.
In the final analysis, the episode reminds us of a fundamental truth about public life: words matter. They matter because they connect the dots and verses on the vast canvas of political communication, shaping how citizens interpret the intentions and integrity of those who speak in the name of power. When words are treated as disposable instruments of hired salesmanship, the canvas becomes blurred. The dots fail to align, the verses lose coherence, and the portrait of leadership dissolves into suspicion. For political communicators, the lesson could not be clearer. Credibility is built slowly through consistency, conviction, and intellectual honesty. Once compromised, it cannot easily be restored by rhetorical dexterity. And in the long memory of democratic discourse, words do not simply vanish. They travel outward, gathering echoes, before returning to connect their own dots on the canvas of public meaning. In that enduring canvas, words always matter.
