Adebola Williams’ role in President Muhammadu Buhari’s electoral victory is anything but modest. Under the name Statecraft, he headed a team of nine that conceived and implemented the president’s audaciously effective media campaign in the last presidential election. In this interview with ORUKPE NELSON, the co-founder of The Future Awards Africa and Red Media explained why he was committed to Buhari and how TFAA has impacted the Nigerian society.

People mostly know you as one of the brains behind The Future Awards Africa, but you obviously have other pursuits. How do we describe you?

I am a media entrepreneur and my life is centred on creating values. I feel that I have a mandate to impact people and to lift people up. This reflects in our work with the Red Media Africa, TFAA, Ynaija and Rubbin’ Minds talk show. My partner, Chude Jideonwo, shares the same mandate.

Our lives are centred on using the media to influence choices, which could be in leadership or personal growth of the people. Sometimes, as a PR practitioner, you use the media to influence consumers or to tell the world that your candidate is the best choice just like Statecraft did with President Muhammadu Buhari.

Your role during the presidential election has fuelled suggestions that you might serve in this government. Does that mean anything to you?

We did our work and it was God’s grace we were appointed the official communication agency by the director-general of the campaign, Rotimi Amaechi, which also says a lot about the kind of person he is. He believed in the possibility of young people who were below 30 to run the presidential campaign.

It showed he was insightful in his thinking because he understood that young people make like 70 percent of our population and those people who should be communicating with them should be young also. He believed in Statecraft after many years of engagement in which he got to know what we could do. We give him credit for that and we as well give praise to God. We did the work, so anything that happens thereafter we would all be here to see. My life is an assignment and I am here to fulfil that purpose.

Would you take a political office if offered?

It would depend on the circumstance; like I said my life is an assignment. There is nothing we do without guidance; there is nothing we do without engaging our mentors, – Oby Ezekwesili, Tonye Cole, among others – and of course we need to engage God too. So, it is a total process to make such a decision. It is only a blind or foolish man who goes into a place without checking where he is headed to.

Why were you so committed to the Buhari campaign? Was it because of what you stood to gain?

For us, Buhari’s campaign was beyond work. It was a life and death matter because as individuals we had several issues with the way the country was being governed. We may have engaged the government of the day at a time because our platforms are national and they are aimed at influencing Nigerians and to drive change. But when the opportunity came to choose as an individual between A and B, we stood for what we believe in.

In 2011, I voted for Buhari even though I did that with fear and trembling. I felt he was a man who could shut down the whole system and introduce dictatorship. But I got to know him better during the last elections and I realised that he was a man genuinely interested in aborting corruption.

But there were times you dined and wined with the former president, Goodluck Jonathan…

I didn’t personally dine and wine with Goodluck Jonathan. When was that? It was the platform but some people got it wrong. You would limit your platform if you are national and don’t recognise the national office. We wanted to do something good; we wanted to recognise and celebrate young people who are making a change in the country. You cannot ignore some certain opportunities just because you didn’t agree with the national office. He wanted to celebrate 100 most influential young Nigerians and we had no problem with that.

But it doesn’t mean that your personal beliefs have to be tinted. A week after that Best 100, we had the Future Awards in Port Harcourt hosted by Rotimi Amaechi. That should tell you that we are in the middle; we are not for any political party. At our event in Ekiti State in 2013, we had Kayode Fayemi, the then governor of Ekiti, Amaechi, Emmanuel Uduaghan (former governor of Delta State), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, among others. We must always do our best to make sure that our platforms remain national regardless. You shouldn’t bring in your personal beliefs and destroy the lives of people who depend on you. You just have to find a level playing ground.

When was Statecraft established?

It was established two years ago because we realised that we had to work with the people in government and we needed to separate our corporate communication from that. We have a nine-man team led by myself.

You used to be a staunch member of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, but it appears the group lost its voice after the elections. What could have happened?

If you’ve paid adequate attention and did your homework well, you would know that there is no slow down. It is you people, the media, that is creating something that is not happening in your mind. People are still talking; Dr. Oby Ezekwesili is still talking on social media. But before Jonathan left, the noise has reduced.

Dr. Oby became a lone voice and this has not been the first time people leave her to do things alone. Since a new government has taken over, it would take a bit of time for things to gather momentum. The things that still happen on Saturdays at Marina, Lagos, are going on and the meetings in Abuja still take place.

Also, the new government is assuring us that things will get better. BringBackOur- Girls is over one year; this is the longest advocacy I have known in Nigeria and it has stayed this long because of Aunty Oby. Occupy Nigeria only lasted for seven days. It might appear not to be loud as it was because people are getting tired. This country tires you out.

Your interaction with politicians is increasing and it has been suggested that it may have an adverse effect on the credibility of the Future Awards and your other platforms. Do you agree?

That is why there is an executive director for the Future Awards and a director for the content company. We now have directors and executive directors for the platforms, so I and Chude are operating on the board level.

Future Awards marks 10 this year; how do you feel about this?

Just like a proud father, you would have the feeling that an idea you gave birth to has become 10-year-old. It is a feeling of achievement because there is one thing to nurture something consistently and there is another thing to have a huge impact. Again, that platform has given birth to several children, seven other opportunities.

When we started we had a 20-year vision that in 2025 we would have built a critical mass of young people who will live by the values of TFAA, which are hard work, achievement, integrity and creating something out of nothing. This means that the group of young people who will be running for office to lead Nigeria would have gone through our process.

In 2005 and 2010, we had an outbreak of young influential leaders because of the effect from TFAA. They now find something that was bringing them together. If you look back to the year 2000, young people could not say their age. The Future Awards breaks that stereotype and creates a system that says you can be young and be an achiever.

Before then, the only people we knew as youths in Nigeria were the university students. Politically, they were the only ones recognised; nobody recognised young professionals or entrepreneurs. Then we galvanised them to begin to contribute to national dialogue and challenge the leadership. We have many young people that the world got to know through Future Awards. Bayo Omoboriowo came to the Future Enterprise Support Skill Training and tidied up his photography skills. From there, he disappeared and two years later he won the Future Awards.

We then started taking him around and later we introduced him to the government circuit. He then got a job as a photographer during the presidential campaign and now he is the presidential photographer. For TFAA, 10 years is about success story. Many young people’s lives have been changed because of this platform.

Were there times when you had doubts about holding the awards and nearly gave up?

This is a question I have not been able to answer. By the grace of God we’ve never reached a point where we said we would never hold the ceremony. It has always been ‘what do we do next?’ We had even organised a huge celebration for Funmi Iyanda at that time without money, so we had seen things done with no funds. Our mindset from the beginning was that we had nothing but we were going to make this happen. The day of the first edition (February 6, 2006) was rough because we were yet to pay the balance. We had to make calls to certain people who spoke to the owner of the hall before we gained access.

The decoration of the hall was not complete, but we found a way. I and Emilia Asim-Ita (also a co-founder) picked up the broom and started sweeping the hall. Our MCs couldn’t show up. One said she had no car to bring her down and the other said if the other person wasn’t coming he was not available.

Right there, we went to Segun Obe who hosted the event alongside one other person unprepared. At the end of the event, I can still remember what Nomoreloss said. He said ‘Look at these boys, they said they don’t have money; look at the nice event, look at small chops and cocktail.’ We only had people.

People like Saheeto Small Chops, Tonye Cole, Adesuwa Onyenokwe, Musiliu Obanikoro, Funmi Iyanda, and many others were helpful. I think Asa even performed at that event. There’ve been several times we announced the kick-off of TFAA and we didn’t have money. We knew at the beginning that it was going to be tough but we still went on.

The beauty for us was that each of us had spent between three to five years serving people. Chude used to be with Funmi Iyanda, Levi Ajuonuma and many others. Same applied to me and Emilia too. We had spent years around the media industry, so we knew enough people at that time.

When we met Aunty Adesuwa she said she had no money to give us but she likes our passion. She started putting calls through to people and it went on like that. We used the people we had to get to the people we needed because we were humble and respectful kids. So, it wasn’t easy but we had people who helped us to get to other people.

Was extending the awards ceremony to Africa part of the initial plans too?

At the onset, it was Nigeria, but the more we engaged the continent, the more we realised that our problems were similar. Young people across the continent are suppressed. Look at the bombings in Rwanda, the hunger in Somalia and the kind of monarchical leadership in some of these countries. So, we thought that since we’ve done it in Nigeria and it has worked, we should extend it to Africa also. Out of the 10 categories last year, I think about six of them were won by non-Nigerians and five of them came to the country for the ceremony.

What makes this year’s celebration different?

This year, we are looking back at telling the story of change and the role TFAA has played. Then using that story and our 10 ambassadors for this year to inspire the new Africa we want to see in the next coming years. That is why the theme is ‘Imagine Africa’.

What are those areas you still desire to do more?

I used to act like 10 years ago. Somehow, I seem to be getting back on screen. Last year, I made my return on stage with “The Wives”, featuring Joke Silver, Kate Henshaw, Iretiola Doyle and Kemi Lala Akindoju. This year, by God’s grace, I would be in London Life, Lagos Living with Kate, Lola Lami Phillips, among others. I am going to be on an Ebola movie, 93 Days, and The Island series with Omotola and co. So, my acting career somehow is finding its way back and that happens to be my first love.