OSUN 2022: Basiru Confident of Victory, Calls for Decency as APC Kicks-off Statewide Campaign

Editor’s Notes

This piece is one of the outputs of the Positive Agenda Nigeria’s election campaign monitoring initiative in Osun. PAN is a group of academics and independent researchers dedicated to maintaining a favourable environment for Nigeria’s socioeconomic and political activities. 

Senator Ajibola Basiru, the Director-General of Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola’s Campaign Council, believes that the APC candidate for the July 16th Governorship Election will defeat his opponents because of the significant accomplishments he (Oyetola) had recorded in more than three years as the state’s Chief Executive Officer. Senator Basiru, representing Osun Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly, showed this optimism during the launch of the governorship campaign council.

Aside that the Osogbo-born federal lawmaker was confident in his party’s victory, the Positive Agenda Nigeria Campaign Monitoring Team discovered that his speech was tinged with joy about his appointment as the Council’s Director-General. The Team’s research shows that Senator Basiru expressed 80 percent confidence in the Governor’s achievements, and that influenced his optimism for Governor Oyetola’s likely victory. The lawmaker was also logical in his methods of communicating the governor’s accomplishments, urging members of the Council to devise modest campaign strategies.

“His scorecard in labour and industrial relations, infrastructure, health, education, and security among others is our primary weapon of canvassing for votes. This is how we can encourage the electorates to vote for our Party,” Senator Basiru pointed out.

Analysis of the 7-paragraphed speech using an emotion detection tool reveals,on average, more than 70% level of happiness and 69% assurance that Governor Oyetola will win the election. PAN’s Team also examines Senator Basiru’s expression of policy activities and/or programmes of the governor. Ten traces of the activities and/or programmes were found. Largely, the lawmaker claimed that Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola had performed well in labour relations, infrastructure, health, education, security, among others.

Hence, his verdict that Oyetola deserves to be re-elected. Twenty percent of the traces were devoted to attacking opponents while 10% was allotted to defending perceived negative utterances from opponents about personality and activities or programme of Governor Oyetola in more than three years.

Exhibit 1: Emotions and Language Tones in Senator Basiru’s Speech (0-100 Range)

Acclaims
“While I congratulate all of us on the great honour of being found worthy to be called upon as party members into the Campaign Council for the re-election of Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola as the Governor of Osun State for another term of four years in the forthcoming election of July 16, 2022. I implore us to be very alive to our assigned responsibilities.

It is given that we are pivotal to the success of our Party at the polls and we must begin by propagating the achievements of Governor Gboyega Oyetola as the fulcrum of our engagements with our people on why our Party deserves to be voted for and our candidate returned as the next Governor of Osun State. As we go into the season of campaigns, I implore us to be civil, tolerant, and remain focused and unperturbed on our objective. Our focus at all times should be on what we want to get done, the re-election of Governor Gboyega Oyetola for a second term in office as the Governor of Osun State.

Our basic rule of engagement with the electorates should be issue-based and devoid of character debasement (as much as possible), our zeal for the re-election of our standard bearer must be balanced with humility, modesty, and confidence. Our emphasis must always be on a quick summary of our successes as a Party and the achievements of Governor Gboyega Oyetola in the past four years.”

Attacks and defenses
“In politics, it is tempting to go negative by pointing out the flaws in other candidates. Going negative is the dark side: quicker, easier, more seductive, but ultimately the better candidate wins. Let us give our opponents the liberty of going negative but we, as progressives, must not pander to their bait. After all, our concern is not our opponents but the electorates, whose votes will usher us back into the Government House to continue with the good works of consolidating development and prosperity with working social infrastructures and a productive economy.”

Our Verdict
Based on the analysis, PAN notes that Senator Basiru, as one of the key political actors in the campaign ecosystem, has demonstrated that his team can ensure positive campaign environment throughout the campaign period. It has also shown that the Council is ready to execute issues-driven campaign activities across the state. The non-governmental organisation expects manifestation of decency, as called for by the Senator. And such is expected in messages, campaign settings or locations and media platforms which will be used by the Council, as the party kicks-off statewide campaign in the next few days.