By Niran Adedokun
When former French leader and statesman, Charles de Gaulle, said, “Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him,” he must have had the Nigerian politician in mind. Currently, our political leaders increasingly gravitate towards dispensing half-truths and outright lies to Nigerians rather than addressing the issues which directly affect the development of the country.
In the past couple of weeks, politicians across the divide have taken to incredible information manipulation not only to increase their own chances but to diminish their opponent‘s chances. The impression we get is that electioneering is war and since all is fair in war, politicians can embrace any weapon of warfare, without consideration for the negative effect of their methods. But elections should not be war, they should be the celebration of democracy.
Communications experts would say that our politicians have employed propaganda but I insist that this tends towards an extreme fiddling with the intelligence of hapless Nigerians who desire urgent improvement in their standards of living.
True, propaganda which has its origin in the propagation of the Christian faith by the Catholic Church, is fair and effective in war. Volumes have been written on how effective propaganda was in the execution of the war which Adolf Hitler started on the world, for instance. Nigerian history has also seen the effective use of propaganda during the civil war. We also saw the use of propaganda in the years of military rule and now, politicians are now on a propaganda spree.
Richard Alan Nelson, an American communications educator, describes propaganda “as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels.”
Propaganda is generally an appeal to the emotion, not the intellect. It tends towards self-praise and is very prone to dismissing opposition with the ultimate aim of securing an uncritical following. Propaganda inclines towards being overbearing, dogmatic, assertive and disinterested in debate.
Hitler gives us more insight into what propaganda is with the following words attributed to him: “If you are going to tell a lie, don’t tell a little one because it will be recognised as a lie. Tell the biggest and most unthinkable lie.”
The Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress appear to be racing at outdoing each other in the propaganda war at the moment.
Let me give you two examples of stories that I found to be amusing and irritating at the same time in the past one week. Last Saturday, there was a news item alleging that the Federal Government planned to freeze the accounts of major financers of the APC. The report credited to Mallam Shehu Garba, spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council described the alleged plan as “bestial and undemocratic,” calling on Nigerians to resist the move even though he showed no iota of evidence.
The next day, many Nigerians including very influential legal practitioners joined the fray, denouncing any attempt by the Federal Government to clamp down on the finances and aircraft of Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State and former Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos State. In releasing this information, Garba totally forgot that identifying Amaechi, a sitting governor, as a major funder of the party’s presidential campaign would most likely run against the laws of the land. But he said it and Nigerians, without raising questions, fell for it.
Not going to be outdone by the opposition, Garba’s opposite in the PDP, Femi Fani-Kayode, alleged that the vice-presidential candidate of the APC, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, had taken an oath to resign and make way for Tinubu six months after assuming office. This was on the same day that the chairman of the PDP alleged that the fuel scarcity currently being witnessed in the country was sponsored by some opposition leaders which he failed to name. I wonder how they come about these random talks.
But there have been far more ludicrous, sometimes devious unsubstantiated claims from both sides before this last weekend. Just a few examples would suffice. After the emergence of Buhari as the APC presidential candidate, a medical report, purportedly emanating from the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital indicating that he was terminally ill from prostate cancer appeared on the internet. The management of the hospital later denied issuing the report. This was followed by an almost mindless campaign on the imminent mortality of Buhari spearheaded by Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose.
The PDP also alleged, again without proof, that the APC merely used Buhari’s appearance at Chatham House, London as cover for his ill- health. Fani-Kayode who raised this allegation further suggested that the party parted with about N5bn to set up the speaking engagement. He insisted that Buhari was in the UK for medical purposes and that his presentation was hurriedly arranged and paid for.
Some members of the PDP have also relentlessly tried to discredit the Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Attahiru Jega, fuelling speculations of his impending removal, something that the opposition has also latched on to without any proof either way.
The APC had done its bit of misleading the public and whipping up sentiments against the PDP. There is the story of a picture of Buhari which was said to have been presented to deceive for instance. No attempt has been made by all the vocal image makers in the party to deny insinuations that the media were manipulated into publishing this misleading picture in an attempt to show that Buhari’s mission to London was not medical.
There is also the unsubstantiated claim that the Federal Government gave a N6bn bribe to pastors across the country made by Amaechi, and another that it was behind the Boko Haram attack on Gombe State on February 14, 2015. Leaflets urging people to stay away from the polling booths on election days were circulated during this attack.
The APC also alleged that the Federal Government plans to frame up Buhari as a sponsor of the Boko Haram insurgency. This followed government’s encouragement of the army to capture the leader of the Boko Haram insurgent group, Abubakar Shekau, alive. This weighty allegation is apparently the product of somebody’s fertile mind as nothing has been said of it again.
The allegation that men of the Nigerian military surrounded the Ikoyi, Lagos home of Tinubu was a ruse after all as no one has provided any proof of that, not even a photograph! The same goes for the insinuation that Jonathan planned to bribe members of the National Assembly towards extending his stay in office by six months.
So from name-calling and mudslinging, the leading political parties have moved on to cooking up stories which fall flat when subjected to scrutiny. I am thinking that it is time politicians spoke to the needs of the people. Speak about plans to reduce the burden of poverty in the country, to improve power supply, to make food and potable water available, provide shelter, improve access to and quality of education, provide community-based health insurance for our people and make lives and property more secure.
This strategy of filling our minds with fabricated stories, giving false hope and twisting people’s emotional perspectives is limited. At some point, when people see through it as they are bound to, it becomes counterproductive and will backfire. Nothing pays like saying it to the people you are proposing to lead the way it is, no matter how difficult. That is integrity!
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