Debola Kareem
That campaigns have become integral part of modern electioneering is incontestable. Though social scientists have asserted that campaigns do not necessarily determine the voting decision of the electorate, it is unlikely that candidates and parties can win elections without effective political campaigns. It is now history that President Muhamadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo won their reelection for a second term in office.
As the drums of victory are being sounded throughout the country for the president and vice president and his party, analysts have been trying to analyse sociopolitical factors that have contributed to this electoral success. Some commentators have pointed to the power of incumbency, alleged use of coercive state apparatuses, the modest performance of the present administration in the first term and its integrity level, others to the alleged questionable character of the opposition candidate, and (those with some mischievous bent have alleged massive rigging, vote buying) as deciders of the results.
But not much has been said about the nature and texture of the campaign machinery deployed by parties and groups. Anecdotal evidence shows that the massive campaign launched by the APC, for instance, was in no small way responsible for the winning votes that they garnered across the country, especially in the North and some parts of the South. In case you doubt this evidence, all you need do is to imagine what the results of the 2019 Presidential Election would have been if the president had confined himself to the comfort of the villa reading and signing memos, or chatting away with his friends without going through this arduous tasks of campaigns.
With the lifting of embargo on campaigns, parties and candidates who are vying for the office of the president, on November, 18, 2018began campaigning in line with the time table by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), using various strategies. If the campaign structure of the APC was remarkable, the all-pervading presence of the president as the driver of his party campaign was strategic. This presence to start with, helped to discountenance the claim that the president was sick and therefore unfit and incapable of engaging in any rigorous exercise which such campaigns demand. As at the time campaign rounded off, the president and the vice president had visited all the 36 states of the country and Abuja. This is relatively, unprecedented. As the president himself noted recently, he paid this visits, covering two states per day, “to prove to the other side that I am fit.”
However, while the presidential council was busy on the campaign trail, several other campaign groups were working in their own way to ensure the reelection of the president. Most of them, in any case, appeared to be a kind of short-lived groups, whose works and presence were confined to outdoor advertisements and a couple of mainstream media houses in Abuja. Unlike these groups, Forward With Buhari (FWB),a voluntary group, formed by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum devised a unique, outstanding and strategic approach to the reelection campaign of President Buhari.
When it was unveiled on 22nd January, 2019, not many observers knew what it was up to, but it turned out to be a successful campaign movement. I remember Senator Lawal Shuaibu, Deputy National Chairman, North of APC, and Leader of the group,describing the FWB as mounting one of the best oiled campaign machinery for the reelection of the president. “And you will see how well we are able to draw support for the president,” he had said. This group, would later engage critical stakeholders at all levels, community level and party stalwarts,and membership cutting across civil society groups, youths support groups, women groups, goodwill ambassadors, foot soldiers, all of who worked to reach the grassroots. They visited several cities in the North and South including Lagos, Benin,Kaduna, Zamfara and Katsina for door-to- door campaign.
Day and night, on foot and in their branded luxurious Busesadorned with dazzling pictures of Buhari and Osinbajo -and through particularly enthralling road show -the group danced, shared t-shirts, chanted“sai baba”, “sai baba Buhari,” “Move Forward With Buhari to the Next Level,” and distributed thousands of its souvenoirs and fliers to supporters and well-wishers. Being armed well prepared and armed with knowledge and ideas about many of the laudable projects, policies, achievements of Buhari administration, they sold the president and his policies to the people, emphasizing his record of integrity which defines his persona, anti-corruption fight and determination to develop the economy. They thus underscored the essence of continuity for the administration, stressing that to sustain the tempo of the government’s achievements,Baba Buhari and Professor Osinbajo had to be reelected.
It was not only through the road show, or door-to-door campaign that the group made its remarkable presence; it also had an intimidating presence in the traditional and social media, sponsoring a number of advertorials and making some interventions. One striking communication strategy employed by the group was to focus on substantive issues as much as possible, while avoid negative adverts including mudslinging, personal attacks which characterized our campaigns, particularly the 2015 presidential campaign noted for its notorious negativism. Issues that dominated the adverts by this group in the media centred on anti- corruption, economic diversification, agriculture, livestock, and security. Such focus on issues instead of non- issues, particularly resonated in the minds of voters who would give their support to the reelection bid of the Buhari administration.
There is no doubt that winning elections is an interplay of several intervening sociological factors, the role that well-orchestrated campaigns play in that regard cannot be overemphasized. The FWB could be said to be a powerful campaign force for the reelection of the president. I will therefore, urge that those strategies adopted by the group in their effective campaign should be improved upon for the next campaigns. Importantly, the Forward Buhari Group should also not stop at basking in the euphoria of this electoral success, and move beyond that level. If possible, it should constitute itself into a think-thank that can assist the president in not only achieving government’s campaign promises, but publicizing them.
Part of the initial challenges that the APC government faced in its first term is the peoples lack of awareness of the massive rot in the system and how the APC government had tried to salvage it. Nigerians are in desperate need of awareness of what the peoples president is doing and not doing to make democracy more meaningful to Nigerians. And this group may well be of use in that regard.
Kareem writes from the Department of Political Science, University of Abuja.