PR SHOTS The Spokesperson as Set Designer on Borrowed Ground
By Ahmed Balarabe Said
A spokesperson is not the builder. He is the man who hands out keys. His job is to make the public believe the house is finished, even when the plumbing is still incomplete, and sometimes, there’s no big problem with that. But the moment he invites people to turn on the tap, he stops being a spokesperson and becomes a witness. And witnesses can be discredited.
That is what Alwan Hassan did with 112. He didn’t just claim an achievement; he dared Seun Okinbaloye to test it live. “Call 112 now. Put it on speaker.” It is the audacity of a set designer pointing at a painted wall and asking the audience to knock on it. The phone failed, and the studio (plus a global audience) heard silence. Viewers also said theirs failed too. Hassan proceeded to blame the network. Okinbaloye pointed out that other calls from the same studio were working. There is no graceful exit from that.
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So here is the concern. The deeper problem was not the failed call. It was the ownership claim. 112 was conceived under Obasanjo in 2005, launched under Buhari in 2020, and was still being “unified” under President Tinubu from latest records available ast at September, 2026. Hassan sold a 20-year old framework as a fresh Tinubu deliverable, then volunteered a live demo. So, he audaciously handed out keys to a house built by three previous administrations and invited the nation to inspect the plumbing, which was why, when the call failed, the embarrassment, though likely technical, has now become more historical.
This is the disposition of the spokesperson. To carry claims that are not his to make, and to be the first to fall when those claims collapse. A good spokesperson knows the difference between claiming and demonstrating. A reckless one confuses a talking point with a product launch.
Unfortunately, Hassan turned what would have ordinarily been a policy assertion into a public autopsy. So, I think the party didn’t fire him because he lied, but because he made the lie visible and embarrassing. Less than 24 hours later, he was gone, and the campaign narrowed its authorized voices to three. And we know at least two out of these three persons will always deliver because they always do better.
The lesson is simple and brutal. Reputation is not built by confident spokespersons. It is spent by them. Every live test that fails, every borrowed project sold as new, every “thanks to our government” attached to another government’s foundation, devalues the currency of trust. The stage can be shared, no doubt, but the fall is always personal. As a salesman, Hassan walked into that studio with the ambition of telling Nigerians what has worked, but in turn walked out to be remembered as the man who built his set on borrowed ground, then invited the cameras to watch it sink.
By the way, did you also dial that 112 just to check?
Ahmed Balarabe Sa’id is the author of Aren’t We All PR People?
