With the much-talked-about Osun State governorship election done and dusted, ALLWELL OKPI reviews the build-up to the election in terms of the various strategies the major contenders in the election employed to woo voters For some months, Osun State had been agog with rallies, road shows, distribution of gifts by politicians, posters and flyers with diverse campaign messages displayed across the state. Though there were 20 candidates that contested the election, many agreed only three of them stood a chance of winning the election. These top three contenders—Governor Rauf Aregbesola of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Iyiola Omisore of the Peoples Democratic Party, and Alhaji Fatai Akinbade of the Labour Party—seemed to have been the only ones who took their campaigns to all parts of the state. They applied various tactics and approaches in the course of the campaigns. The tactics included: Showcasing of projects and achievements For incumbent Governor Aregbesola, his second term bid started subtly long before opposition parties chose their candidates. He essentially preached continuity and much of campaign events ran alongside the commission of one project or the other, with the promise of completing ongoing projects if re-elected. In the last one month to the election, Aregbesola commissioned more than six projects, including nearly refurbished schools, the Omoluabi scholar buses, and some hospital equipment. At the commissioning of each of these projects, Aregbesola took time to campaign for his re-election. In contrast, considering that none of them had governed the state before, Omisore and Akinbade mainly talked about their achievement as senator and secretary to the state government, respectively. The duo criticised some of the projects by Aregbesola’s administration. As part of his strategy, the PDP candidate said if he was elected, his government would not abandon any of the projects initiated by the current administration, provided they were beneficial to the people of the state. Rallies The APC candidate had arguably the largest crowd during his campaign rallies, which held in virtually all major towns in the state. This rally strategy involved mobilising party supporters across the state to attend these rallies alongside supporters in the host community. Typically, some leaders of the APC from other states also attended. At the rallies, Aregbesola reeled out his achievements; urging his supporters to vote without being afraid of security personnel. The rallies were characterised by singing, dancing, waving brooms, and casting aspersion on his opponents, especially Omisore. Omisore’s rallies were a bit different. It was referred to as ward-to-ward campaign rallies and had the PDP candidate’s convoy, often with less than 100 people, going from one community to another wooing the electorate. It also featured PDP leaders in Omisore’s convoy throwing branded gifts, including clothes, caps, hand fans, and boxes of matches, to people. Omisore and other PDP leaders however addressed people who converged in their thousands at every major town in the state. For Akinbade, the campaign style was termed parlour meetings. The LP candidate went round the state holding meetings with different groups of people, discussing his plans and programmes for the state, in attempts to convince them to vote for him. In a recent interview, the Chairman of LP in Osun, Mr. Tunde Olatunji, said, unlike his party, the APC and the PDP were sponsoring crowds for the rallies. He insisted they had their own crowd saying, “If you attended the declaration of our governorship candidate and the flag-off of our campaign, you would have seen the difference between genuine crowd and imported and sponsored crowd. Ours was not a sponsored crowd; we don’t have the wherewithal to sponsor crowds.” Stomach infrastructure’ The phrase ‘stomach infrastructure,’ which originated from the June 21 Ekiti State governorship election seems to have come to stay as a tactful way of referring to the practice of politicians giving gifts such as food and money to the electorate, ahead of an election. Omisore’s PDP had used this practice rather effectively in the build-up to the Ekiti election, in which its candidate, Ayo Fayose, emerged victorious. In the build-up to the Osun election, the PDP gave out rice, vegetable, kerosene and other items to the electorate in large volumes. When it was criticised, the Publicity Secretary of the PDP in Osun said the party was not inducing voters with the gifts, but were merely showing that they cared for the people of the state. Though Aregbesola’s APC had initially condemned ‘stomach infrastructure,’ it eventually engaged in it rather subtly. It gave out rice and some packaged branded foods. Whereas Akinbade and his party, LP, remained resolute against the practice, he was quoted as saying that stomach infrastructure “is dangerous to Nigeria’s political development” and therefore refused to engage in it. The argument over stomach infrastructure eventually elicited a response from the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, who said giving of gift by politicians was not illegal based on the Electoral Act. Debating policies Some policies and actions of the Aregbesola administration were fiercely debated in the course of the campaigns. Some of the knotty ones included the schools reclassification and merger, single uniform for all public schools bought from a contractor of the state government, and delay in the payment of civil servants and lecturers of the state’s tertiary institutions, as well as pensioners. While Aregbesola worked hard to defend his education policy and blamed the inability of his government to pay workers and pensioners as of when due on what he claimed to be a deliberate attempt by the PDP-led Federal Government to starve his state of funds, the other candidates picked holes in his argument. Both Omisore and Akinbade had accused Aregbesola of destroying the state’s education sector and impoverishing people of the state by focusing on projects that drained the resources of the state at the expense of paying workers and improving the people’s standard of living. They also vowed to reverse the trend in which the state government gave contracts mainly to people outside the state, leading to capital flight. On the education policy, Omisore went round the state promising to reverse the schools merger and make all public schools return to using their distinct uniforms. He maintained that the implication of single school uniform, sewn by one company, which was allegedly linked to the governor’s wife, was that many tailors and cloth sellers were denied of their means of livelihood. According to Omisore, his programmes would be focused on making Osun a business hub and developing every part of the state, while Akinbade’s promises essentially focused on developing agriculture and through which he hoped to create jobs and provide opportunities for rural development. Wooing traditional rulers The top three candidates sought the support and prayers of the traditional rulers in the state. However, for Omisore, it was a major strategy. The PDP candidate visited virtually every palace in the state, from the top traditional rulers to the village heads, and his message was clear. At these palaces, Omisore portrayed Aregbesola and his party, the APC, as having no regard for the traditional institution, and promised to give the Obas their rightful place if he got elected as governor. He also promised to revive the meeting of council of Obas, which had been halted by Aregbesola’s administration. Few days to the election, it was believed that the PDP had secured the support of most of the traditional rulers in the state, and there were indications that the outcome of the election could be a show of how significant or otherwise the traditional rulers are in determining who wins elections in their domain. Poaching There were quite a number of defections of political leaders to and from the top three parties in the Osun election. Though the PDP had poached some leaders of the APC and those of LP, it seemed to have suffered more loss of prominent politicians as far as Osun politics was concerned. While the party had worked hard to cushion the effect of the defection of a former governor, Senator Isiaka Adeleke, to the APC, the defection of another former governor of the state, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, barely five days to the election was believed to have dealt a significant blow to the PDP’s chances in the election. Other tactics There were many other tactics that were employed by the top contenders in the election. For instance, the APC worked hard to discredit the personality of Omisore, by often times referring to his indictment in the murder of late Minister of Justice, Bola Ige. The PDP, on the other hand, harped on their argument that the APC government in Osun was being run by the wishes of an APC leader, Bola Tinubu, who resides in Lagos. The PDP worked towards a bandwagon effect, considering its landslide victory over the APC in Ekiti barely two months earlier. The PDP also wooed voters with the promise that the Federal Government would get more involved in the development of Osun if Omisore got elected as governor, a claim the was corroborated by President Goodluck Jonathan, during the party’s mega rally in Osogbo. With the use of media, Aregbesola clearly outdid all other candidates. No other candidate seemed to have displayed half the numbers of campaign billboards and posters that were displayed across the state for Aregbesola. The APC candidate seem to have also done better in terms of television coverage and documentaries. In the same period, Aregbesola launched a book and a movie, both focused on his life and achievements. However, analysts believe the one-on-one reaching out of the PDP and also the APC could have made a significant difference in the election. The two parties had, in the weeks before the election, sent their agents to reach out and negotiate with registered voters, who had collected the permanent voter cards and were ready to vote. There were speculations that both parties offered cash and other gifts to voters who gave their commitments to vote for them. In all, judging by the build-up to the election, the August 9 Osun State governorship election would go down as one of the most keenly contested in recent history of Nigerian politics. Copyright PUNCH. All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH. Contact: editor@punchng posted on August 10, 2014 at 12:10AM Send an email to Joseph T. Obagbemisoye 08140584469 or 08086797418 Like JTNNG on facebook facebook/jtnng91 View Joseph T. Obagbemisoyes profile on facebook facebook/jtob91 Follow @jtob91 and get followed also jtnng.blogspot/
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 23:52:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015