The
Nigerian political environment is highly demanding for politicians and elected
officials; being a developing economy, elected officials face almost the same
teething problems on water, electricity, road, hospital, education,
unemployment, high state debt, low level of revenue from the national coffers,
dwindling internally generated revenue and general chaos associated with
politicking.
Political
officeholders are rated by the public based on their performances on the
afore-listed and other areas of the economy, especially their ability to beat
expectations and the records of their predecessors in office. Coupled with this
is the constant, dangerous and destructive onslaught of political rivals and
supposed ‘enemies’ who invent strategies to downplay the performance or
achievements of a political office-holder, create problems and strive to ensure
that such a political office-holder does not succeed. Therefore, as a
politician is struggling to meet and surpass his or her electioneering
promises, he or she battles the headaches created by his or her enemies. Note
that violence of all types, kidnapping, hooliganism, blackmail, defamation,
assassination, and spiritual attacks are some of the stocks in the arsenal of
political detractors capable of destroying the reputation of any political
office-holder.
Most
importantly is the online reputation of politicians which can be damaged and
totally destroyed within some minutes. As at March, 2019, 55.5% of Nigerians
connect online and can easily share contents within and without; the situation
is made worse because of the inability to easily track these detractors and
those who have read or seen what they posted, and correct the misgiving
imputed.
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| StatCounter, Infoprations Analysis, 2019 |
This
development has implications for the newly elected governors and their future
aspiration in the corridors of power. The consequences would be severe on the
governors who had issues during primary elections. Our data suggest that the
aggrieved members of their parties are likely to sponsor Facebook users or recruit
detractors to set them (elected governors) up using fear, anger and
sadness. These emotions would be used mostly when they are expressing their
views on employment generation, infrastructure and poverty reduction.
The
elected governors should also expect attacks tailored towards their
personalities rather than the parties. The reason is that politician-induced
Facebook users will shift their distraction and reputation attack activities
towards individuals not the parties because the campaign has ended and there is
a need for whoever dreams to contest in 2023 to start the mobilization in 2019.
In our
experience, we have also understood that the sponsor Facebook users or
detractors’ views would not reflect three narrative tactics –presentation of the governors’ ideas,
experiences and understanding of the current socio-economic status of the state
and possessing concrete plan towards its development as expected. Therefore, reputation management, especially
on offline and online media, is a key ingredient of a successful political
experience.
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