Communication is key in our socio-economic development. All living things communicate with each other in different forms, styles, ways, methods and the application of strategies in relaying messages or information to their partners, colleagues and audience.
Communication is all about dissemination of information or message from one person to the other.
The essence of Communication is to make the recipient of the information understand what has been transposed to him or her by the source or the sender. When the comprehension is absence or missing, then Communication has not achieved its objective.
Communication is not about propaganda, lies, exaggerations, slant or spinning the message and its transposition.
It is about nothing but fact.
It is also to attract persons to appreciate your message and also to convince any potential person to accept your message.
When communicating, the communicator must exhibit humility, accuracy, simplicity, tactfulness and truthfulness.
Even the posture should be that of reverence to your audience.(on a visual medium).
It must be stressed that when communicating, you have to consider the cultural values of your audience.
If you derail or devalue the cultural principles of your audience such as respect, humility, truth and reverence, you will not achieve the objective of capturing your audience and sending the message to them.
One politician who has so far made communication catchy, attractive, enjoyable and understandable in the circles of the current Government is the Deputy Minister of information, Fatima Abubakar.
This lady makes communication so attractive that one does not want her to end her submission anytime or moment she begins to speak.
I will urge all political communicators in our political turf to emulate this lady when it comes to informing the populace on political matters.
She communicates with humility, facts, figures, she uses printable words, exhibition of diplomacy and maturity and she eschews arrogance and insults whilst communicating to her audience.
I see her as an epitome of political communication in our political landscape.
At times, it is very sickening listening to some so-called communicators who exhibit the opposite of what Fatima Abubakar does or exhibits.
Instead of winning souls to their political fold, they rather detract potential joiners away from their political parties.
Communication is verbal and non- verbal.
My piece is centred on verbal that is the spoken communication.
Political communicators should be able to appeal to their audience to accept their policies, programmes, principles and objectives not to go haywire or contrary to their objectives.
When you communicate, you don’t need to lace it with insult, castigation, attack or lies.
When you communicate as a politician, representing your political divide and the applause comes from your party sympathizers only and not from your opponents or the independent minds or persons, then, you have achieved nothing but praise singing.
Let others join your fold because of your communication skills and antics.
Channels Of Communication:
We have radio, television, newspapers, journals, magazines; these are traditional channels or Media.
Then we have the social media, which is mostly unregulated. Anybody can be there to access any information or put out any information.
As a communicator, you have to weigh the best channel to use to sell your message to your audience.
Effective Communication is the way to go to win the hearts and souls of your audience.
Communicate accurately and it is the lifeblood of our societal growth.
By Ahmed Osumanu Halid
Nima-441