The All Progressives Congress has joined the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, in using an attack campaign strategy with 22 days until the Osun 2022 governorship election, according to Positive Agenda Nigeria, which has been observing activities of political parties and their supporters on various media. The organization notes that the opposition party has been utilizing the strategy mostly since April 6, 2022, while the ruling party has continued to use it sparingly over the course of the prior weeks of monitoring.
In its seventh report of the monitoring, the non-governmental organization notes that the vote-buying controversy that had been discussed in various media over the previous weeks eventually materialized in some cities and towns, where members of the ruling party and opposition distributed various incentives to the electorate. The report contained proof that breads and beans had been distributed.
The organisation notes that findings for Week 7 indicate that the two main political parties adopted attacking and defensive strategies for their campaign messages more strongly than messages promoting their candidates. This implies that when one party accused the other, the other issues rejoinders (e.g., press statement, press conference) to debunk the allegations, and vice-versa. Dominant among such allegations that led to verbal attacks and defenses included thug-related violence, killing and voter inducements. Essentially, vote-buying was discussed mainly in relation to possible electoral violence during the poll. Then, rigging through collusion with security agencies, the INEC and political thugs were communicated by the main opposition party as part of their attacking strategies.
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“Despite that the two main political parties advocated violence-free election, they accused each other of sponsoring some political thugs to harm each other’s strong supporters. Then, despite that the two parties admonished their supporters and the general people of Osun to collect the PVCs, and desist from selling their votes, some pictures (e.g., packaged rice and white beans) that suggested alleged inducement of potential voters by the two parties surfaced on Facebook and Twitter. If these were really inducements as alleged by digital natives, it means stomach infrastructure is still much an active tool politicians use to woo potential voters with a view to influencing their voting pattern. This is dangerous for the true representation of people’s choices.
In spite of the accusations and counter-accusations, supporters and members of the two parties seriously sought votes for their candidates through the communication infrastructure— Facebook, Twitter, campaign grounds, jingles and newspapers. As they canvassed votes, discussions on education dropped while issues related to economy and infrastructure picked. Moreover, the fact that the potential voters in Osun were more interested in knowing more about employment, security and agriculture in week 7 is insightful.
The political parties, had they had factored in the search interest of Osun citizens in planning their campaign messages, would have discussed the issues that would interest the citizens in convincing detail. Instead, the political actors engaged them (the public) on unrelated issues and infrastructure as observed in the parties’ campaign speeches.”
In addition, the ruling party remains the only political party that had significantly engaged the public across the campaign issues in the last seven weeks while the People’s Democratic Party remains the only opposition party that trailed the ruling party in engaging the public. The smaller opposition parties (SDP, Labour, and Accord) also had some slight changes in engaging the public on their campaign promises.
“Finally, we reiterate the recommendations we made in week 6. That is, we urge the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to partner with security agents in the state with a view to ensuring lives and property of voters are protected on the election day. Political thuggery and life-threatening vandalism should not return to the political atmosphere in Osun. We also urge the INEC to convene meetings of political stakeholders in the state where issues relating to vote buying, voter inducements and violence alongside the legal penalties for offenders will be discussed.
In addition, as election draws nearer, we specifically suggest that the two main political parties convene meetings among their media teams and handlers, and enlighten them on the need for decorum and strategic issue-based campaigns across their online platforms. This, we believe, will reduce the toxic political atmosphere being observed in Osun online-sphere. Importantly, political parties in the state should desist from unnecessary heating of the polity with their unsubstantiated allegations and counter-allegations— If they have evidence of committed violence by a party or its supporters, they should report to the appropriate authorities. All political parties should understand that elections are seasonal; they will come and go, but the state remains.”
The full report is available here