Osun 2022: Report shows that APC and PDP were found attacking each other instead of focusing attention on campaign issues
Posted by Ahmed Iyanda | 2 years ago | 1,599 times
Ahead of the Saturday, July 16 gubernatorial election in Osun State, political parties have, in line with the electoral timetable set by the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC), started their campaign. However, All Progressives Congress(APC), the People's Democratic Party(PDP), their supporters and media teams were found attacking the personalities of their political opponents instead of focusing more attention on campaign issues that could woo the electorate.
This was drawn from a report conducted by Positive Agenda Nigeria(PAN), a non-governmental organization led by a group of academics and independent researchers dedicated to adopting evidence-based approaches to preserve a favorable climate for Nigeria's socio economic and political activities. The survey aimed at monitoring and evaluation of campaign activities of actors within political parties, candidates and their supporters on various platforms being used for spreading messages about personality traits of the candidates, parties and candidates leadership style as well as capacity to govern the state sustainably.
The report specifically considers campaign strategies employed by candidates, parties and their supporters, most importantly members of the media team of the parties and the candidates.
Indication from the report shows that messages posted on Facebook by the political parties through their official pages, candidates' pages and supporters' personal accounts as well as news stories were the primary sources of data.
These stakeholders were monitored from April 9 to May to May 11, 2022. During the period, the analysis paid attention to messages, especially those promoting activities of the candidates that were not related to political activities. Attacks, acclaims and defenses were the three categories of campaign the report looks for in each message extracted from Facebook and national newspapers.
According to the report, attacks were the messages that denigrated personality traits of candidates and leadership quality and/or competence of the parties as well as candidates to govern the state. Acclaims were the messages that show that the parties and the candidates were better in terms of personality traits, leadership quality as well as competence in delivering quality public goods to the citizens and residents in the state. Defenses were the messages that refuted negative elements pushed out by actors against candidates and political parties.
Judged across 60 messages, a total of 76 traces of the campaign strategies were found. Out of these traces, attacks and acclaims were more than defenses.
Analysis indicates that 53.26% of the traces were attacks, while acclaims and defenses were 35.52% and 9.22% respectively.
Day-by-day analysis of the strategies showed that actors started using attacks on Friday, April 29, 2022. This also applies to its usage on Friday, May 6 2022, the day defenses were used at the same level they were employed till Saturday, May 7 2022 before it nose-dived on Monday May 9, 2023 and pocked again on Tuesday May 10, 2022.
The report reads in part: "Our analysts discovered 106 traces of campaign and/or policy issues from the messages that were tracked during the monitoring period."
The report shows that instead of spreading messages and debating about critical governance, issues or programmes in the state, actors focused on communicating and deliberating on issues that were not related to campaign directly. "For instance, the majority of the actors discussed lack of respect for traditional institutions by a candidate and his party, intra-party visitation over campaign, nomination of candidates for state assembly election, candidate's national party engagement, popularity of candidate as well as his good works during previous political office he held."
Similarly, over 27% of the 106 traces were devoted to discussing these among others while less attention was paid to the current state of economy, education, health and security in the state.
Focusing on Facebook and Newspaper, analysis reveals that the identified campaign issues and/or policies were discussed on Facebook more than in the newspapers.
Furthermore, the report also indicates that actors discussed health, education, security, agriculture, infrastructure, workers' salary, welfare and employment mostly on Facebook.
In terms of political parties that had supporters and candidates that engaged the public using the campaign issues and/or policies, analysis show that APC was much better than the PDP and APM. "However, the People's Democratic Party led the All Progressives Congress in the other category.
Beyond understanding which political party and its supporters deployed these strategies mostly across the campaign issued and/or policies, the report found 76 traces of strategies of which over 58% of this figure were attacks while 35% and 9.21% were acclaims and defense respectively.
Further analysis indicates that PDP attacked more than acclaimed and defended while APM only acclaimed.
From these data, both the PDP and the APC attacked each other in terms of personalities of their candidates alongside their capabilities to rule the state, although the PDP engaged in such attacks than the APC.
Positive Agenda Nigeria recommends that the political parties, their supporters and media team start engaging electorates on the social media or real campaign issues, policy programmes instead of demarketing the personalities of their political opponents.
Click here to download the full report
