Communications blunder: Why political attacks don’t sway voters

Lai Mohammed is the interim national publicity secretary for All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeria’s leading opposition party. He has been at the top of his game firing pot-shots at the People’s Democratic Party, PDP on all national issues whether necessary or not. In the same way, Olisa Metu, the national publicity secretary of the PDP has often responded, hitting back at APC.

Following the constant lack of constructive exchanges between the two image makers, there seems to be no difference between the two parties, judging from the perception of most Nigerians.

Instead, what the electorate has witnessed is the regular heating up of the polity by either or both of these spokesmen in what should have been well a coordinated and constructive give-and-take which should provide value and have the weight of convincing the electorate on voting pattern.

Assessing these political attacks recently at the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) forum in Abuja, Craig Smith, who has more than 25 years experience in governmental and political issues globally, said voters don’t like political attacks that are ordinary and don’t contain value to sway voting decisions.

“Political attack campaigns are often used more than they are effective. They can work if they are tested and researched, but voters don’t like them to begin with when they are not deep without facts.

“Unless they are done correctly, they will not have impact on people’s vote as people will not believe them and they could be counterproductive,” said Craig who served as White House political director to President Bill Clinton.

Craig, who spoke on ‘Political Advertising, Perception Building and Voter Education’ was categorical when he said politicians can employ political attacks but warned that oftentimes, two-thirds of voters turn them down as many of them do not provide information that are based on research and don’t provide the information the voters care about.

“Often, political attacks don’t provide any information that voters care about and so they become ineffective,” Craig who has been involved in political campaigns in many countries, said.

If one party accuses the other of corruption or supporting insurgency, the accusation should be well substantiated but what we see are mere exchanges of brickbats with so much heat but little or no light.

Craig further explained what informs electoral victory, attributing it to real message, money, mathematics, campaign, the candidate and context. He said campaign is the core message that will convince voters to vote as the electorate will not be convinced on just attacking the opposition party without offering alternative to the opponent’s policies and programmes.

Electoral victory is also based on what the candidate dwells and believes on, who he/she is and what he/she will likely do. It is also predicated on who the opponent is and his believes and ideologies. According to Craig, effective campaigns are run by professionals who develop unique campaign messages that create value. He said that many messages by politicians create confusion as fewer messages that are reinforceable are better in political campaigns through carefully chosen media channels.

Craig, who maintained that political attacks that are ordinary do not work because they are not persuasive, said it is the responsibility of communication managers to prevent politicians from using utterances and attacks that do not work and could work against them.

Political analysts believe that political attacks should be issue-based. For instance, when a party gives a direction on how it could address an economic or socio-political issue, the other party could agree with the solution or counter the solution process and offer its own. But in Nigeria, the analysts believe that what we have seen are mundane, ordinary and frivolous attacks that are capable of resulting in counter-productive outcomes.

For instance, in a report recently, Leonard Umunna, the general overseer of Bible Life Church, told APC to focus on solving its many internal challenges before accusing the PDP. “Every day the party takes joy in criticising the President and the PDP which simply amounts to pursuing a rat. It does not make common sense and by so doing, APC exposes itself so much and some of such criticisms have had to even attract sympathy for government.”

Leonard further said that “today, some of those who disliked PDP have discovered that APC is not better and so, such people have gone back to supporting the ruling party. When you continue to hype on your enemy’s weak points, punching the party at every slightest opportunity, on radio, TV and newspapers as APC does against PDP, people are now saying ‘wait a minute, are these accusers any better?”

Relying on his Bible, Leonard quotes the scripture as saying that when your enemy is in trouble, do not expose him to more ridicule. “The right thing APC should do is to offer constructive criticism where and when necessary, not just condemning everything whether reasonable or otherwise.

“Today, some people have brushed aside the corrupt allegations against the impeached Murtala Nyako and started blaming somebody for being against Nyako’s travails. What manner of reasoning. In our society, when a person commits offence and he is caught we blame those that caused his arrest instead of blaming the culprit. Haba!”

Speaking recently, Lai Mohammed said the opposition was a necessity in a democracy to promote good governance, stability and accountability. The PDP which had often refuted APC attacks, describe them as unnecessary noise and falsehood.

If the APC is to stand any chance at the 2015 polls and avoid crash-landing the little goodwill it has left before the campaigns begin in earnest, analysts believe that they need to rejig their communication agenda, separate true governance from politics, be more astute and factual in their utterances.

For a ruling party, many observers believe that the PDP’s communication machinery has been abysmally mediocre, has failed to rise above the mudslinging antics of the opposition, especially its cliched view that every problem is ‘politically motivated by the opposition party,’ and also needs a reinforcement in its guard for a more ‘presidential mouthpiece’ ahead of next year’s polls.

Daniel Obi