Face of Truth | Dr. Ibrahim Shaglawi The Prime Minister.. Manufacturing Embarrassment

Sometimes, a public official is embarrassed by those around him, whether members of his team of advisers or media professionals, when they fail to properly read events and shape the image. Thus, an appearance that is supposed to enhance his standing turns into a scene that diminishes his stature, and perhaps his credibility.

This is the paradox that imposes itself following Dr. Kamil Idris’s appearance at one of the fuel stations in Khartoum.

There is nothing wrong with the Prime Minister going to a fuel station. On the contrary, a public official going into the streets and following up on people’s conditions is a politically valuable act when done intelligently, especially in a country exhausted by war and whose citizens’ livelihoods have been heavily burdened. But the problem lies in the scene from which the message was constructed.

The Prime Minister appeared asking the fuel station attendant about the availability of fuel, then accompanied the man to the inner storage area, where the measuring instrument was lowered into the underground tank and brought out in front of the camera, prompting His Excellency to proclaim before a crowd of citizens that fuel was available, that there was no crisis, and that the tank was full.

In the same scene, from another angle, citizens were gathered in front of the station seeking service. Here exactly, the paradox became embarrassing for the man. The Prime Minister was measuring the crisis inside the tank, while the citizen was measuring it in the long queue.

The fuel may indeed have been available, and perhaps the purpose of the scene was to emphasize that stocks were available and that there was no crisis. But this does not eliminate the problem faced by citizens every day, as they stand for hours at a fuel station without knowing when their turn will come or whether they will find fuel at all.

 Therefore, the crisis is not about abundance, but rather about regularity of supply, fairness of distribution, and ease of access to the service.

This is a simple point in economic calculations, but it is fundamental to crisis management: citizens do not consume indicators; they consume services.

Therefore, the same scene could have produced an entirely different political message. It would have been enough to say: fuel is available, but there is pressure and congestion in distribution, and these are our measures to address it, then announce them through field decisions, just as he announced the banking applications. At that point, acknowledging the problem becomes part of the solution.

People do not ask the government to perform miracles in wartime, but they want to feel that the state sees what they see and understands what they are suffering from the exhaustion of displacement, the exploitation in transportation, and its continuously rising costs every morning, and does not ask them to deny what their own eyes see.

Here, popular memory recalls a previous scene that remains present in the public consciousness. During a previous fuel crisis, Wajdi Saleh spoke of going to a fuel station himself to verify that there was no crisis, relying on the sight of the station owner sitting on an angareeb in the shade, waiting for customers seeking service to fulfill their needs. People did not see the angareeb as evidence that there was no crisis; rather, the scene became an object of ridicule, and he was given the nickname “Wajdi Angareeb.”

The lesson here lies in the political memory created by the public. When people feel that an official is using a small detail to prove the opposite of what they are experiencing, the statement does not end when the field visit ends. It turns into a joke, then a nickname, then a political memory preserved by history.

Today, unfortunately, the scene almost seems to be repeating itself in another form. There is an angareeb in the old story and a fuel tank in the new one. In both cases, a scene inside a fuel station is presented as evidence that the crisis does not exist, while the citizen present at the same location provides the most direct evidence of the crisis.

Here, precisely, the responsibility for shaping the event and constructing the image becomes apparent. Choosing the location of the appearance, formulating the message, and producing the scene reflect political decisions that should be measured before they are broadcast by how citizens will receive them, and whether they will enhance the image of the Prime Minister or place him in a position open to ridicule.

In many countries, it is well established that the Prime Minister’s media office is not merely a body for covering visits and publishing statements. Its task is much greater than that. It is part of building and strengthening trust between the state and society. Therefore, choosing a single scene can be a political decision, not merely a media decision.

The man came to the premiership with an international record that raised expectations about him. This record requires political and media translation worthy of it. The public should not be presented with the image of an official immersed in daily details, but rather with the image of a statesman who knows where his responsibility begins and where the responsibility of the institutions under him ends.

The weakening of the Prime Minister’s image may not have been intentional, but the event, according to #Face_of_Truth, reveals a weakness in media and political judgment. In wartime, the government’s responsibility is not to polish its image, but to fulfill its “Citizens’ Livelihood” program, explain the causes of crises and address them, and tackle deterioration.

 Citizens do not need a discourse that denies what they see with their own eyes; rather, they need a government that acknowledges the problem, assumes responsibility for it, and provides clear solutions to all crises.

Wishing you continued health and well-being.

Saturday, October 3, 2026. Shglawi55@gmail.com