Nigeria’s 2023 Elections: Thumb-Printing Folk Devils or Lesser Evils on February 25?

Moral panic is a widespread, often irrational fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society, according to Stanley Cohen and subsequent scholars and professionals who discovered it as a concept that needs to be adopted for understanding trends in human behaviour.

Politicians often use moral panics during campaigns in order to divert attention away from the primary campaign issues and create a sense of urgency and fear in the public. By creating a moral panic, politicians manipulate public opinion and gain more attention for their campaigns. Instead of focusing on the actual issues and policies, they focus on creating a sense of fear or urgency in the public. This allows them to avoid discussing the actual issues and policies, which could lead to criticism or a decrease in public support.

Moral panics can be effective tools for politicians during campaigns, but they can also be dangerous. They can create an environment of fear and hysteria that can be difficult to control.

From all indications based on the campaign activities Nigerians have been exposed to by candidates and political parties since September 28, 2022, Nigerian politicians and their supporters cannot be exonerated from political actors who have been deploying moral panics as part of key elements of modern propaganda manufacturing and use during election campaigns. As stated previously, instead of focusing on primary issues that concern citizens and the country’s development in particular, candidates and their supporters have largely dwelled on using poor health conditions, age, trivial issues around the Naira redesign policy and fuel scarcity to create anxiety that swayed citizens from asking fundamental questions. Also, presidential candidates, in order to have a large share of votes in regions such as north-west, north-central and south-west primarily known for having “block votes,” have mainly played identity politics by employing religion, ethnicity and the “same faith” ticket as part of their campaign message elements.

These elements have been used to negotiate and construct different identities for candidates, political parties, groups and individuals to the extent that voters, according to our analyst, would find it difficult to make an appropriate decision on February 25, 2023, when they are expected to be at various polling units and electing their preferred candidate(s). They have made voters see some candidates as “folk devils” and others as “lesser evils.” Some candidates and political parties are classified as “folk devils” using these elements because of their prior performance while in power. However, for those under the “lesser evils” category, they are better to be considered despite using these elements because “folk devils” have significantly ruined the fortune of the country in all sectors and industries.