Former Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Friday told graduating students of Achievers University that his national fame was built not in government, but in the trenches of opposition politics, where he spent nearly a decade exposing what he called “weaknesses” in the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
Delivering the 15th convocation lecture titled “Don’t just graduate, innovate,” the former minister, who served eight years under President Muhammadu Buhari, said perseverance and fearless media warfare turned him and his team into an “alternative government” between 2006 and 2015.
“Failure is not the opposite of success; it is part of the journey to success,” Mohammed told the graduates. “You must reinvent yourself relentlessly. That is the only way to stay relevant.”
Recalling his days as spokesperson for the Action Congress (AC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and later the All Progressives Congress (APC), he said: “Sometimes we issued three press statements in one day. Through constant, research-driven media interventions, press conferences, interviews, and releases, my team and I became more credible than the government itself.
"We set the national agenda and effectively operated as an alternative government.”The former minister said the price of that visibility was high. “I faced harassment, arrests, and worked without salary. The DSS arrested me in Osogbo; the police arrested me in Lagos. But I could not be intimidated.”
Mohammed urged the students to embrace failure, innovate boldly, and remain omnipresent in their chosen fields, insisting that fearlessness and consistency were what eventually brought the opposition to power in 2015.
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