Somewhere in Abuja, a government official in NSA Nuhu Ribadu's office wrote a check for $9 million to a Washington firm called DCI Group. Four and a half million up front. To fix Nigeria's image in America.
I have seen what they got for it, because the law makes them file the work. Buckle up.
A clip-art tree. A Canva flyer. AI cartoons that look like they were ordered off a gas-station menu. Email blasts with the engagement of a dial tone. I started
#DCIRefund yesterday after they dropped a meme so cheap I assumed it was a parody account run by a bored teenager. Nope. That is the deliverable. Nine million dollars, and the creative budget apparently went to one guy and a free trial of Canva.
But the crown jewel is their star witness. DCI is very upset that I "smeared an independent journalist." Independent. Hold my coffee.
Their independent journalist went on a guided stooge tour and came back with copy so glowing you would think Nigeria was a spa retreat. Garden of Eden stuff. Meanwhile 1,402 people were massacred. And the funniest part — the part their own federal filing coughs up in black and white — is that "independent" comes with a price tag. More than $54,000 of Nigeria's money, one line labeled, and I am not making this up, "Retainer."
That is the whole campaign in one word. They paid for independence and forgot to delete the receipt.
So Nigeria's government pays a guy to write the brochure, pays a firm to email it around, and the dangerous one in this story is the missionary who never took a dime. Got it. Makes total sense. Airtight.
They were just getting warmed up. They also put Roger Stone on the payroll as a "consultant" — because nothing says "we are the credible ones" like Roger Stone. And they spent good money mailing out dinner invitations with Nigeria's First Lady, like a Beltway version of a timeshare pitch. Come for the brie and chablis, stay for the perception management.
When all that failed, they reached into the bottom of the barrel and pulled out a debunked, decades-old political hit against a pastor I am proud to call my friend. That is not opposition research. That is a firm out of ideas billing by the hour.
And here is the kicker. After $9 million, the posts get no clicks, the memes get ratioed, and the whole thing reads like it was reverse-engineered to embarrass the client. They are betting President Trump cannot tell the difference between his own supporters and a paid foreign front. The President reads people for a living. He has seen smoother operators than this at a flea market.
Here is a thought, since math is clearly not their strong suit. For that same $9 million, I could teach and feed 45,000 displaced children for a year. My friend Alex Barbir — another one they keep smearing — could build more than 6,000 houses for them. Real roofs over real heads.
Even with your sociopathic, evil little hearts, surely you can run the numbers on that one. Feeding children and building houses gets you better press, better international relations, and a better showing at the polls than flushing the money down the swamp toilet in Washington for amateur hit-pieces and boring AI graphics. Worth a try? Or is the grift the whole point.
The contract is up for renewal this month. So here is my professional advice to whoever signed it, free of charge — which is already a better deal than DCI gave you: get your money back. You can buy a lot with $9 million. Clearly not talent. Definitely not the truth. And apparently not even a decent meme.
#DCIRefund
#EarthShaker