To strengthen the growing trend of dialogue over disputes and wars, the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared the 1970s as the decade of communication. The expectation was that every country would endeavour to become a communicating nation. Not many have successfully embraced the appeal till today because everyone has adopted a haphazard approach to the subject. Government, societal institutions and the general public have continued to relate with themselves and one another through the ‘transmission model’ which sees communication not as an exchange of ideas but as the mere transmission of messages with or without a purpose. In other words, once a message is transmitted, it does not matter whether the receiver understands it or not.
The unavoidable consequence of the approach is that communication has largely remained ineffective. The commonest of the phenomenon is the communication that is often swallowed by noise. Nothing else better exemplifies this point than the current electioneering campaigns ahead of the 2027 general elections where all that is heard is noise within and among large crowds. All our political parties appear convinced that the best way to address the masses is to demonstrate capacity to put together large crowds that are engaged in the communication of the deaf. Many people among the crowd are in attendance with different goals in mind just as many do not in essence understand the purpose of the gathering. The trend is fast becoming Nigeria’s unique contribution to the development of democracy.
In fairness to our political class, several theories of mass mobilization and information flow are put in use in the campaigns across the country. The missing point is that no one knows whether the communication theories as currently practiced add any value to the comprehension of the political messages that are being disseminated. A common scheme is the two-step flow model which posits that the media influences the public indirectly through opinion leaders, who interpret and relay information to others. In line with this model, politicians seek to use revered leaders to pass messages to the people in addition to what the media does. The problem here is that not many people are willing to listen to some of the so-called leaders because the latter are no longer regarded as credible by the people. The case of traditional rulers for instance has virtually become a double-edge sword because they are now seen as enemies of the opponents of their preferred candidates.
Such traditional rulers are generally being robbed of the title of the people’s royal fathers that are expected to be non-partisan. This has encouraged campaign coordinators to expand to the multiple-step flow theory. In today’s Nigeria, the steps are greatly affected by the prevailing socio-economic factors in the environment. When an international music or soccer star is introduced into a political rally, the strategy pulls a huge crowd but do the people get to hear whatever is being said? This is difficult to determine when it is realized that the same huge crowd surfaces the next day when the event is organized by another political party. Accordingly, it is getting increasingly difficult to evaluate the real support which a large crowd adds to the fortunes of each campaign team. It is however not in doubt that everyone probably gets entertained and perhaps finds some material gains before leaving making it obvious that campaigns are now sources of economic gains to many spectators.
Another strategy remains the use of the media by strong advocates who engage in interviews to sell the candidates of their parties. Here, the television networks have had a field day. Unfortunately, it has not added much value to the campaigns because most of the advocates approach the task with a fruitless mindset. A television interview which is ordinarily a great opportunity for a party chieftain is marred as most party representatives seek to change the interview format to what in political broadcast is known as ‘party talk.’ In the latter, the party representative gets a free no-interruption opportunity to say whatever he likes. But the situation changes when it is an interview. Here, questions would be asked, follow-ups would be done and indeed, interruptions will occur where critical terms are referred to while answering questions. The trend one sees now is that the party official demands not to be interrupted while answering questions. The other week, a party official said publicly that he came prepared to face the interviewer!
The professional position is that the interviewer represents the general public as his questions are generally crafted in line with comments in the public space. The guest is therefore expected to see his interviewer not as a particular person but as a typical citizen whose views he ought to respond to with a mind to changing or reducing to the barest minimum, any anxieties real or imagined that citizens hold against his party. Indeed, a party official at a public interview session is admonished to ignore the nuances of his interviewer and deal with the substance of the message in favour of his political party. To go for a television interview with a mindset to deal with a naughty interviewer is patently ill-advisable. Sadly, that is what we see these days on national television in Nigeria with a politician seeking to take control of a programme in which he is only a guest. Even if a combative approach such as aggressively demanding respect from an interviewer was what the party had planned, it is wise to realize that the posture cannot explain to the public why the party is asking for our votes.
To drive home the point, let me recall my personal experience as an interviewer with President Shehu Shagari seeking re-election in 1983. I asked Shagari if I was free to describe him as ‘the happy leader’ of corrupt politicians since Nigerians see his party the NPN as a collection of money bags and thieves. While answering me, he said his smiles increased because he saw me displaying brilliance by playing the devil’s advocate of deliberately projecting an erroneous opinion. He admitted that the NPN may have some bad eggs as it is with all organizations but that because it was larger than all others in everything it also has the largest number of honest hardworking Nigerians. He regretted that it was because the media likes to focus on negatives that it was magnifying NPN’s few bad eggs. He then listed all the popular programmes that the NPN had implemented that should interest Nigerians instead of fake propaganda by political opponents. If that type of question is asked today not only by the NTA but also by the private media, our law enforcement agencies would be on 24hours red alert.
The scenario outside the television studios does not also show that political campaigns in Nigeria follow what happens elsewhere. Whether it is the ruling party that everyone is complaining about or the opposition parties that are preoccupied with complaints, almost every political campaign is violent. There are politicians who are experts in issuing threats while others are engaged in unorthodox practices that make it impossible for anyone to hear the message of any campaign. All parties as stated earlier, are busy creating crowds with noise. Anyone who thinks it is the APC alone that is busy renting crowds should check out for what the ADC did last week in parts of Northern Nigeria. Media reports indicate that because the ADC shut down the relevant towns, those who flew to the rallies were yet to find space to drive from the airport to the rally venues when it was time for their return flight to depart.
In other parts of the country the goal was really to just create crowd and entertain people, not really to educate Nigerians on why they should vote for whom. In Bayelsa state, the home of the NDC leader, the communication of campaign messages took the form of a boat regatta. In some other states it was violence galore with thugs destroying campaign materials of other political parties in addition to state authorities disallowing the use of public media and spaces like stadia. The reported attack on Vice President Shettima’s entourage in Lafia is instructive here. In other words, we are still not ready for the politics of equality featuring a level playing field. A foreign journalist visiting Nigeria would wonder if we detest peace communication until he finds out that we actually have a national peace committee. Whereas many believe that the situation could produce an avalanche of electoral disputes, the judiciary is likely to use technicalities to deal with the development if history is allowed to remind us of the past. Put differently, the judiciary may once again be more active than our electoral body in the conduct of elections in Nigeria.
The post Nigeria’s unique political campaigns, by Tonnie Iredia appeared first on Vanguard News.