Remi Tinubu’s Akara and Kulikuli Remark: When a Message Meets a Hungry Audience -By John Kokome

Communication is not complete when words are spoken. It is complete only when they are understood as intended. Between intention and interpretation lies perception, and in politics, perception almost always wins.

That perhaps best explains the uproar that followed the recent remarks by Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, encouraging Nigerians, particularly women and young people, to venture into businesses such as akara and kulikuli production. The backlash was swift. Social media erupted with criticism. Political opponents seized the opportunity to accuse the administration of lowering the citizens’ aspirations. For many Nigerians, the message sounded like an admission that after years of promises of economic prosperity, the best advice the government could offer was to fry bean cakes and package groundnut snacks.

But was that truly what she meant? Probably not.

Across the world, small businesses remain the backbone of national economies. From street food vendors in Bangkok to family-owned bakeries in Paris and home-based food processors in Nairobi, countless global enterprises began with simple ideas and modest capital. Nigeria itself is filled with inspiring stories of entrepreneurs who started with roadside kiosks and grew into respected brands. There is nothing inherently demeaning about encouraging entrepreneurship through local products.

If anything, akara and kulikuli represent businesses with low entry barriers, steady demand and opportunities for value addition. Today, with better branding, hygienic packaging, digital payments and online delivery platforms, what once existed as informal roadside trading can evolve into scalable enterprises serving supermarkets, offices and even export markets.

The First Lady’s message, viewed strictly on its own, was one of enterprise, self-reliance and economic participation.

Yet communication never exists in isolation.

Words are interpreted within context, and Nigeria’s current context is unforgiving.

Millions of Nigerians are struggling with rising food prices, inflation, unemployment and declining purchasing power. University graduates are driving commercial motorcycles. Professionals are taking on multiple side hustles simply to survive. Small businesses are battling high electricity costs, multiple taxes and exchange rate volatility. Families are making painful decisions about what meals to skip.

Against this backdrop, even the most well-intentioned message can sound insensitive if it does not first acknowledge the pain people are living through.

That is where this conversation shifts from economics to communication.

Public officials often assume that what they intend to say is what citizens will hear. Experience repeatedly proves otherwise. In reality, audiences filter every government statement through frustration, expectations and lived experience. When trust in leadership is strained, even words of encouragement can be interpreted as evidence of indifference.

This is why strategic communication matters just as much as good policy.

Empathy should precede advice. Citizens are more willing to embrace difficult messages when leaders first demonstrate that they understand the hardship people face. A simple acknowledgement of the economic realities confronting ordinary Nigerians could have fundamentally altered how the First Lady’s remarks were received.

Framing also matters.

Had the emphasis been on government initiatives to improve access to microcredit, vocational training, and business support and market opportunities, with akara and kulikuli merely serving as practical examples of viable enterprises, the national conversation might have been entirely different. Instead, the examples became the headline, overshadowing the larger message of entrepreneurship.

This is the danger of communication in the social media age. Nuance rarely trends. Sound bites do. A single phrase can eclipse an entire speech. Once public perception hardens, recovering the original intent becomes an uphill battle.

Still, fairness demands that Nigerians resist the temptation to judge every statement in the harshest possible light. Healthy democracies thrive on accountability, but they also require intellectual honesty. Criticising communication failures is legitimate; deliberately stripping statements of context to score political points is not.

The lesson from the controversy is therefore twofold.

For government communicators, every public statement must begin with empathy and end with clarity. Technical correctness is no substitute for emotional intelligence. Leaders must recognise that in difficult times, people hear with their stomachs before they hear with their ears.

For citizens, there is value in separating a communication misstep from the substance of an idea. Entrepreneurship should never become a subject of ridicule simply because it was poorly communicated. Nigeria’s economy needs more wealth creators, not fewer, whether they build technology startups, agro-processing companies or successful food businesses that begin with akara and kulikuli.

The real question was never whether frying akara is dignified work. Honest labour has always been dignified.

The question is whether Nigerians feel they have a government that is creating an environment in which such businesses can survive, expand and create prosperity.

That is the conversation worth having. Everything else is merely the noise that follows when communication meets a hungry audience.

John Kokome
A Communications Strategist and Public Affairs Analyst writes from Lagos
kokomejohn@yahoo.com