A non-governmental organisation with data-driven research interest, Positive Agenda Nigeria (PAN), has applauded some new approaches some political parties in Osun State recently deployed to promote their candidates ahead of the state’s governorship election come July 16, 2022. However, PAN warns political parties to refrain from statements that depict vote buying and showcase verbal attacks, as such practices are unhealthy for democratic principles.
The organisation dropped these hints in its second weekly report on election campaigns ahead of Osun 2022 Governorship Election.
Although the report had instances where candidates and their supporters attacked the personalities of their opponents, the level at which they keyed into campaign issues improved better than the first week’s campaign traces. Campaign issues such as agriculture, economy, social welfare, education, health, among others, reflected more in this week’s report. This means the rate of acclaims outweighed the level of attacks among political parties and their supporters.
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The report reads, “We implore all the parties, especially the two major parties, to sustain the atmosphere of increased acclaims instead of being attack-inclined in their campaigns. In the same vein, we enjoin the political parties to as well keep on focusing on issues of the state. The improved focus on programmes and policies of the candidates and their political parties should be continued. PAN commends the positive slight deviation observed in the parties and candidates’ engagement this week.
However, we condemn the introduction of insinuation of vote buying capacity by one of the candidates. It is too early for such issues to rear its ugly head in the campaign atmosphere for the Osun 2022 election. For a state like Osun, bringing up policy issues and campaign programmes using radio as a means of communication is commendable. It allows the people at the grassroots level to have access to campaign issues.”
Animasahun Adekunle Mojeed, a Senior Research Analyst with the Group and Lecturer at Fountain University Osogbo’s Department of Political Science, notes that the electoral body and agencies in charge of regulating party finance should begin developing strategies to ensure that vote buying is effectively controlled during the election. This, he stresses, is critical because ‘vote buying intent’ appears earlier than expected, which has tendency of jeopardizing a credible poll on July 16th, 2022.
It would be recalled that PAN’s objective is to monitor pre-election campaigns in Osun for 69 days. This report marks the end of day 14 of the 69 days.
The full report is available here