2011 elections: Politicians and social network media

By Paul Arhewe, Online Editor (Published June 1, 2011)

Before now, social network sites are seen as majorly an effective means of interacting and building relationships across different racial groups beyond countries’ borders. Also, they are veritable tools for business to business (B2B) networking or business to customers (B2C) interactions. However, their values are now been widely utilised by politicians for wooing electorate and used as means for election campaigns to gain advantage over opponents.
There are ample of opportunities for political candidates and office holders alike in the use of social media, especially in contemporary politicking across the globe.
 These media connect politicians with voters and sell to them the transparency associated with their manifestoes. It is also utilised to spar opponents and sway the electorate with an explanation why they should vote for them and not their opponents.“So much of social media is non-partisan, it can make government better. The key is to making sure people...are making an authentic impact on the process,” American Cantor’s Digital Communications Director, Matt Lira disclosed.
In 2008, then US Senator Barack Obama in his campaign adequately utilised these social network media in gaining popularity; hence winning the trust of many Americans who overlooked his black skin to vote massively for this first black US president. Obama’s team used 15 different social networks to reach 5 million supporters over the course of the campaign season. By November 2008, Obama had over 2.5 million followers on Facebook, 115,000 on Twitter, and 50 million viewers of his YouTube channel.
Again, President Obama has kicked off his reelection bid recently with a digital video emailed to about 13 million supporters. In the same vein, his opponents are not relenting; Republican Tim Pawlenty has disclosed his presidential aspiration through Facebook, and his rival Mitt Romney did his with Tweeter. In Thailand the story is the same. Thai oldest political party is currently leaning heavily on social media to woo voters. The party is campaigning for the incumbent Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, and organising for him to talk to the public via Livestream on his Facebook page.
Many Nigerian politicians actually took a cue from the successes recorded from Obama’s innovative social network campaign in 2008 as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogpages and tailored websites were widely utilised as observed during the campaign period that trailed April general elections.
President Goodluck Jonathan who emerged winner in the poll, and sworn in on Sunday for a four-year term, also caught the bug. In fact he announced his intention to contest the presidential poll via Facebook. His presidential campaign was indeed a major social media milestone in Nigeria’s political history, as it created closer rapport between him and his supporters.
For instance, Jonathan’s Facebook page was regularly updated to keep his over 557,200 followers informed. This web platform made Jonathan more accessible to the ordinary Nigerian than any other past presidents. Many people had direct role in campaigning for the president, as the platform provide them the avenue to share promotional information with other friends on their lists, thereby winning more supporters for Jonathan.
A school of thought believes that Jonathan emerged winner in the last election because his campaign team concentrated heavily in the use of Information communication technology (ICT) and the social media.
An ICT Publishers Alliance based in Lagos, having six ICT media owners as members, also upholds this view. The Chairman of this alliance Aaron Ukodie said, “An inexplicable feature of the ICT revolution is the social media tools which allowed Nigerian citizens to monitor and report the electoral process via SMS, video and voice in a manner never before now seen.”
President Jonathan’s also launched a website used to coordinate his campaign team and followers. The chairman of Goodluck Jonathan Global Campaign Team, Peter Eledan stressed that the architect behind goodluckjonathanfor2011.com website served as “the linking paper handkerchief” that helped supporters, volunteers and campaign workers to coordinate their offline and online activities. Supporters could reach out to one another.
However, Ukodie admonished President Jonathan that the use of ICT for electioneering purposes must go beyond this stage. “He must begin to explore, with effective and elaborate collaboration with players in the sector through active policy involvement of the presidency, how ICT can be deplored to galvanise the growth of the Nigerian economy and information sharing,” he said.
In same vein, the CEO of TPT International, a PR firm based in Lagos, Charles Igbindu warns that “... politicians should know that engaging with voters through social media is a continuous process, and can’t simply be revived a few months or a year before the time of election.”
The presidential candidate for Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) Nuhu Ribadu evoked a great presence online after declaring his intention to vie for the 2011 poll. Seen as one of the youthful presidential aspirants in the last election he targeted young Nigerians (the next generation) who normally have strong penchant for social networking via this modern media. The ACN candidate launched a website (www.ribadu.com) and registered an account with Facebook where he had 177,199 followers. On both platform there was YouTube video containing his campaign manifestos.
The Ribadu website has a portal where visitors can send free campaign text messages to their friends or relatives mobile phones to solicit votes for ACN. Even, after the polls Ribadu continued to use his Facebook page to communicate with his followers. In a recent note on his wall page he thanked Nigerians; especially the youths that constitute 70 percent of the population. He used this medium to express their feeling regarding the outcome of the election. “The truth is that the elections offered us lifetime and wonderful opportunities to encounter the vivid living realities of our people. It fundamentally challenged our received notions of development regarding one of the richest nations on the face of the earth but which nonetheless still ranks in the bottom file on all the human development indices”, Ribadu wrote.
Just like his opponents, the presidential candidate for the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) Muhammadu Buhari also utilised some of the aforementioned social media platform. The campaign team for Buhari4Change coordinated its supporters through a website (www.buhari4change.com) linked with YouTube videos containing campaign outings and programmes. There are 13,811 followers on the Buhari4Change Facebook page.
The campaign jingle on the CPC candidate site has attracted a huge controversy. A firm, Bluelabs Limited has alleged it conceptualised and developed the song which Buhari’s campaign team used on its YouTube videos, Facebook page and website. “To our greatest consternation, the video was set against our Transformation Song and adopted similar graphics”, the firm wrote in a website. “While we were delighted at the testament to the quality of our company’s work, we felt seriously aggrieved that our song had been ripped and used in broadcasts without authorisation or license from us.” The Buhari4Change team on its website admit that neither CPC nor any of its officials own, designed or developed the YouTube video montage in question. “We have records of email from Femi Odewumi, MD of Bluelabs LLC indicating their intention to sell the ‘project’ to CPC.”
The use of social media during the last election was not exclusive to these presidential candidates; many gubernatorial and legislative candidates operated websites and Facebook pages to interact with their supporters.
Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola, for instance, has over 5,000 followers on his face book page. From observations, Fashola greets Lagosians good morning and good evening on daily basis while the campaign period lasted. From his page, those greetings have now ceased and no more forth coming; probably because he has gotten the second term that was the target.
The use of social media by Nigerian politicians has really come to stay. The media also serve as an avenue for collecting donation from supporters. The fact that it was pronouncedly and effectively utilised during campaigns leading to April polls, we hope to see wider reach and more Nigerians following these media in future elections.