As political parties, media handlers, and supporters continue to promote more than ten candidates for the governorship election in Osun in 2022, the Positive Agenda Nigeria, a non-governmental organization, stated that voters in the state must be familiar with messages that focus on policy and program issues or needs. After four weeks of analyzing messages expressed by stakeholders on social media (Facebook and Twitter), in newspapers, in radio jingles, and during campaign events in some cities and towns across the state, the organization made this submission.
The organization, which is made up of academics and independent researchers, discovered that the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress, and the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, engaged the public more during the four weeks of monitoring than other political parties who expressed interest in the election.
According to the policy brief released at the end of the first week and made available to our analyst, “media handlers and supporters of the ruling party informed potential electorate on programmes it would focus on if re-elected more than other political parties did. However, the leading opposition party (PDP) slightly engaged people on its planned programmes if elected.
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Political parties (APC, PDP, LP, Accord) and their supporters slightly and highly engaged potential electorate while discussing infrastructure, economy, workers’ welfare, salary and employment and health. But the ruling party (APC) engaged the public more on health, workers’ welfare, salary and employment, social programmes, and infrastructure.
Personality issues of the candidates, competence or lack of it, assassination attempts or threats to life, violence and vote buying dominated the monitoring periods at the expense of informing potential voters the need to vote candidates based on their abilities and capabilities to address existing practical problems or needs in health, education, security, agriculture, economy, social programmes, infrastructure, workers’ salary, welfare and employment.”
Based on the emerged outcomes, the group notes that political parties need to train their social media handlers and media team on media literacy skills so that issue-based campaigns become their focus instead of attacking the personality of other parties and opponents.
Download the policy brief here