REVIEWING ELECTIONS AND ELECTORAL PROCESSES IN AFRICA: THE ROLE OF MASS MEDIA, POLITICAL AWARENESS AND VOTING BEHAVIOUR IN THE NIGERIA’S 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION Democracy is said to be expensive business, and no-where is this reflected more than at election time. Elections are expensive; both at the level of maintaining democratic electoral management institutions and sup-porting political parties. In situations of severe poverty and deprivation as witnessed in Africa, individuals also become susceptible to manipulation and fall prey to financial inducements from politicians. Elections in Africa are a time of despair for contesting candidates, but more so for the general citizenry whose efforts to seek new leadership for their respective countries have been a worthless effort in recent years. It is a time of anxiety for a number of stakeholders. One of the traditional functions of the mass media is to inform and educate citizenry about all aspects of human endeavour including their political life. Thus, in all democracies, political communication, which utilises the media, has become incontestably relevant. At every dispensation, stakeholders intensively exploit political communication to win elections. In Nigeria also, where the mass media use have gained ascendancy in creating political awareness among electorate, politicians ceaselessly use it for similar purpose. As opposed to traditional political arrangement, modern politics demand that political parties serve as a platform through which politicians contest for elective positions. One of these elective positions is the coveted presidential election, whereby the electorate are mobilised to vote aspirants into office. The decision to vote any credible candidate depends on the level of political awareness of a people at a given time, hence, the need of political communication to enlighten voters on the electoral process. It is a time when incumbent political ruling elites take stock of what achievements they will have attained for the citizenry and a time of beckoning and wondering whether they will survive the electoral encounter. Election observers are a key element to the fostering of a legitimate electoral process. And can election observers divorce themselves from dominant political parties or conduct themselves in a non-partisan way? Additionally, to what extent are election observers key to a free and fair election? To respond to these and other questions, one needs to explore the environment in which the elections are located. Building opposition politics on the African continent has proven immensely difficult largely because of the oppressive nature of most post-colonial states and the extremely difficult structural conditions under which opposition forces have to mobilise and reproduce their support. In countries that have undergone an extensive liberation struggle, such as Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, the development of opposition politics presents specific challenges. In particular, the strong legacy of legitimacy enjoyed by former liberation movements and their capacity for revived nationalist mobilisation have presented opposition forces with immense obstacles in developing alternative programmatic positions. Moreover, the often-repressive nature of post-colonial states, compounding the longer repressive histories of colonial politics, has presented democratic forces with few precursors of alternative democratic forms. These obstacles must be set within the context of a global political environment that presents strong structural limits on the positioning of post neo-liberal alternatives. It is therefore not surprising that civic and opposition forces on the continent generally and in West Africa in particular have struggled to locate themselves firmly within the historical legacies and con-temporary demands of their particular national contexts. Elections, notably on the African continent have been associated with vote-buying, politically-motivated violence, mud-slinging as different political parties seek to outwit each other most importantly the period of elections has been one of uncertainty characterised by harassment and intimidation of political opponents. Election periods in any nation generate a lot of interest among the political candidates in particular, and the civil society, in general. This is because the destiny of the people and the nation rests squarely on the shoulders of the successful candidates at the polls. It is no wonder, then that both political actors and their supporters deploy different persuasive strategies to elicit support and woo voters in order to gain and control power. For the opposition, it is in most cases a time when they will need to prove during campaign that they can do better than the ruling party. It is also a time for the opposition to endure all that comes with an uneven political playing field such as harassment of opposition political leaders and their members as well as the abuse of state machinery to further intimidate (and in some case, murder) supporters of opposition political parties. For the electorate, it is again a time when they have to be fed on a diet of lies, misconceptions and falsehoods akin to folktales. For liberation war movements, it is a time when war time escapades are revealed to the populace (mostly figments of imagination) to impress upon the electorate and to remind them that political emancipation came at a price and should therefore not be handed over to opponents on a silver platter. This intimation is an indirect war cry by those whose liberation war credentials are constantly referred to during such times. In short, the time for elections is one of unpredictable events and a time when one wonders whether he/she will see the next day. That is election time in Africa. In advanced democratic environments like Britain, Sweden, France and the United States of America just to mention four, the mass media have since been deployed to educate voters. Congress for political development in Nigeria seeks to highlight the controversial way elections have been held in some countries, which have led to the loss of confidence with the results, in some cases, the disputed elections has led to civil wars, re-run of the electoral process or the formation of coalitions. Election time on the African continent has therefore brought about anxiety to both the contesting political parties and the electorate. In the battle for political hegemony, pre- and post-electoral violence has become commonplace. But the most susceptible victims of the battle for political supremacy have been the electorate who are swayed left right and centre by completing political parties. The aftermath of most elections has left citizens licking their wounds as they take stock of the brunt of supporting what-ever political party of their choice. To avoid outright defeat, most ruling political parties have been able to manipulate both the vote and state security machinery to their advantage. Legislation governing the conduct of free and fair elections has not been of much use either as it has also been manipulated. This paper explores the vagaries associated with elections on the African continent. It is not surprising, therefore, that as the Nigeria’s 2015 presidential elections approached and became more competitive, politicians and other stakeholders sought more efficient means of communicating their messages. One of the most efficient means was the media of mass communication which have now constituted the mainstream of modern electoral politics. The media interest in political awareness is, therefore, obvious and pervasive. Government agencies like the National Orientation Agency (NOA), civil societies and electoral bodies like the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in Nigeria were not unaware of pervasiveness of the mass media. These bodies among others involved mass media in enlightening citizens about the political system. With this development Congress for Political Development in Nigeria reiterates that audience members got to know about aspirants and candidates for various elective posts as well as the manifestoes of political parties. Key things taken to cognisance here, according to Prince Sunday Akpan are who chooses those who rule? How are the choices made and why? Of equal significance is knowledge about the existing political parties and the entire voting process as earlier pointed out. Consequently, we are set to offers a piece of advice that any person or group of persons and even government that ignore the media in their life is courting some danger because media reportage on the political life alone is crucial to its survival and growth. The implication of this is that opinion leaders are characteristically quite influential in getting people alter their attitudes and behaviour. During election periods particularly, political campaigns are staged by politicians to ‘sell’ themselves including their party manifestoes to the electorate. Similarly, other stake holders intensively use the media to create general awareness about the voting process. Nevertheless, since a greater percentage of Nigerians are not literate, even few who possess one channel of mass communication or the other find it difficult to understand the content of the message, hence the need for proper education. The fact remains that the media carry the greater responsibility for providing awareness and education about our pluralist political life. They are effective means of enlightening electorate on the qualities of individual candidates, political parties and their programmes and the entire election process at all times. But the full scale use of money in political advertising which is an offshoot of political communication, often distorts the political system that alternative communication strategies can overcome to the benefit of voters and candidates. The appropriate choice of medium, whether newspapers, magazines, billboards, posters, handbills, moving vehicles, television, radio, internet and cell phone is, therefore, important. It is only when the channels are carefully and routinely employed that the benefit of political communication will be maximally enjoyed. Therefore from our review work for the past years, CPDN has observed the following: CHALLENGES • The insufficient resources that was sub granted by our partners made it difficult for activities to meet deeply its desired output • During the campaign, the promotional materials used especially the youth manifesto citizens’ manifesto, women agenda were not localised to a language that all could understand, however this was played out through an on spot translation of localised languages especially in community. • The campaign needed a larger outreach in the sense that political actors had to play a crucial role during their campaigns encouraging young people to stay away from violence ,however they are the ones initiating youth brigades which are a type of political violence used as instruments to advance their interests to achieve specific political ends targeting youth PROBLEMS • In community, the state of vulnerability amongst young people leads them to continuously lure them into brigades and violent crack units making it a challenging situation despite our campaign. • Lack of active participation amongst the young people with an entitlement mentality and expectation that some one some where owes them a living. • Inability of young people to continuously acquire the necessary consensus for unity, cohesion for collective ideological action. OBSERVATION/LESSON’S LEARNT • The emerging young people involved in Boko Haram, militias and violent crack unit gangs can be refocused in a situation where young people are mobilised and organised into responsible citizens to make informed decisions. • Through action network, young people can be innovative leaders, change makers with the greatest potential to unleash their greatness for effective participation. • The level of vulnerability amongst young people is high that they are actively pushed to participate in violent crack units. This is mainly caused by the un-employment situation among the youth population. • Re-energize the promotion of strong partnership/networks of youth focused groups with a strong capacity to advocate and lobby authorities for sustainable policies, laws and programs • Through group formation, initiate a culture of leader-manager built on responsible leadership and management along principles of democracy, governance and sustainable development CRITICAL ANALYSIS ON ELECTION RELATED VIOLENCE • In a critical analysis, election never cause violence, but rather the root cause of conflict are deeply rooted in social-political, social-economic, social-cultural demands especially amongst the young people • Throughout the political campaign period of the electoral process, there has been very few incidents that have been observed which could have lead to violence on a larger extent • The larger part of electoral violence that merged during the electoral process was observed during the mayoral election and Senatorial District and State Constituency local councillor’s district elections and these were clearly due to poor management of the election process by the Independent National Election Commission. • However in a context aspect, there have been process actions that could play a role in initiating violence amongst the population during the electoral process • The lack of a political parties code of conduct in their operation • -Election viewed as events amongst the population instead of along term process creates a situation of poor designing, management and implementation of the process • Continued neglect of altitudinal dimensions and culture differences in divided societies. • Lack of organisational development assistance for the electoral body to create a working cooperation, participation and trust in the whole electoral process. • The continued unresolved issues from the previous election and the failure to put past recommendation into action e.g. voter register, voter identification cards. • The altitudes and behaviour of politicians in staging up militias and gangs that are a threat to other political actors and the lack of the political will to disband them • The political culture of Moneterizing the campaigns in a situation where the incumbent has access to state resources leading to unequal playing field in the process. • The state of bias of, and accessibility to state media, private media houses creates a tension situation for violence to emerge even when all these use state signals e.g. refusal to access a private radio even when he was cleared. CPDN RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Campaigns about the electoral process should be a continuous one. This will get the electorate greatly acquainted with all the requirements and process that make one to be eligible. Ones empowered they can freely exercise their mandate with utmost ease. 2. Government agencies like the National Orientation Agency, NOA and other stakeholders should avoid overreliance on the mass media. Interpersonal communication which establishes direct relationship with electorate should be used to complement mass media messages. This is where civil society can play a pivotal role by exhibiting drama to rural communities that need greater awareness. 3. With intensive empowerment, community voting should be replaced with individual voting so as not to disenfranchise voters. Community voting obviously promotes god fatherism. Absence of this strengthens and affirms our democracy as electorate feel fulfilled they freely casted their votes to those they wanted as against being manipulated by Chiefs and god fathers. 4. Voters should realise that whoever they vote will impact on their lives in future. Therefore, they should continue with the gesture of wisely casting their votes free from ethnic, religious and social ties as well as other trivial considerations with retrogressive tendency. 5. Throughout the electoral process, the mind set of people especially young people should be refocused to stop viewing elections as events but rather long term process. 6. There is great effort needed to re-organize, mobilize young people into focused groups to participate and involve themselves in the demand process from their political actors. This process should be achieved through continuous engagement 7. and their making a youth manifesto a continuous working document with need to be evaluated from time to time 8. There is need to increase awareness of young people on positive living through information sharing, dialogues with action systems and stake holders. This process builds cohesions and strengthens relation amongst sub groups of youth leading to efficient and effective institutions. 9. In a situation of changing altitudes, youth groups and action systems need to re-organize young people to develop a spirit of volunteerism and community service if we are to achieve positive sustainable development. 10. In critical observation that violence acts amongst young people are due to ideology, conflict, social- economic, social political, social-cultural demands. There is need to enhance their capacity of youth groups, empower grass root councils to practically put their concerns and engagements to effectiveness. through active collaboration in needs of budgeting, planning, resource allocation to bring forth youth demands and aspirations. 11. When we talk about the future of Nigeria , there is need to re-focus of creating youth think tanks at grass root levels to co-exist creative container of community youth to bring about systematic thinking and team learning. This will create a spirit of inspiration, support and action where young people will observe the around contemplate, reflect, analyse and allow their inner feeling to emerge moving to a process of democratic citizenship Therefore, once adopted on the continent, elections became common practice, but with different consequences. With colonization came liberation struggles in most African states after which political independence was attained. This usually led to the first colonial elections in which, blinded by euphoria of the post colonial era, citizens voted with their feet more than with their minds. CPDN has argued that “…more than three dozen African countries long characterized by authoritarian rule have undergone political liberalization or transfer of power through competitive elections”. This blind allegiance soon came to pass as liberation heroes of the continent com-mitted most of their time in corrupt practices, resulting in loss of trust from the electorate. And at election time, they found themselves faltering and failing to secure additional tenure from the electorate. This has led to flawed electoral practices, commonly known as electoral rigging, a practice which has taken the continent by storm in recent times. The aftermath have seen other factors such as ethnicity re-surfacing as defeated political leaders fail to contend with the idea of reverting to being ordinary citizens. Every one everywhere can positively engage in co-creating community imbalance with a strong message as we use our voices to speak out- stand out from acts that undermine Democracy; we need to have benevolence that leads to standing unity to fight integrity violations. Virtues like confidence, determinations faithfulness, justice, love orderliness, responsibility, truthfulness, patience and forgiveness need to co-exist through for peace, security and sustainable development for country, Nigeria. STAND We are always much alive when we keep the world alive free from violence and with a possibility of not treating others in ways we ourselves would find hurting practically involving on co-creating commitment to a better envisioned world. SOURCE: CONGRESS FOR POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 15:46:02 +0000
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