Advertising provides information which we consumers find helpful, and it also increases



our knowledge of the product choices, available to us. In recent years, the use of political advertising has spread dramatically as a result of its importance to campaign strategy in effectively persuading voters.

Did you know that about 15 political parties contested the last Lagos State gubernatorial election while 27 people aspired to succeed OBJ? A Guardian Nigeria Newspaper content analysis of political ads in four notable Nigerian newspapers shows that 108 full page ads by five political parties in February 2007 alone might have generated N43.07 million for the media.

The same source explained that the least that PDP alone spent on advertising via electronic and outdoor media was N2.5 billion. Concluding, the analysis presented a N5 billion figure as the total amount spent on political advertising in the last 365 days (The Guardian 15/04/07). The importance of political advertising can also be understood by looking at the U.S example.

In the 1996 U.S presidential campaign, Clinton spent $12 million of his $30.9 limit on TV commercial in the mid-primaries, $42.4 million during post-primary/pre-convention, and $44 million on TV ads in the general elections (W.Chang et al 1998). Dole on the other hand, spent $47.1 million on TV advertising, while Perot expended $22 million thereby stretching his TV advertising budget by 75%. The total cost of the 1996 election (all races combined) therefore came to $2.5 billion (Centre for Responsive Politics 1999).

It is heartening that many of our political campaign jingles are captivating enough to get our children singing along. However, what is not pleasing to many enlightened members of the public are, to quote an editor-friend, “the denigrating political ads." He wondered whether such materials should not have been submitted to an appropriate regulatory body for a mandatory pre-exposure screening and approval.

I understand that the increasing use of negative political advertising in the U.S is backed by two unrelated legal standards: the Communication Act of 1934 which makes an important distinction between candidate ads and product or service ads. It states that while broadcast stations could refuse all deceptive advertising, they could not do the same with political commercials; the 1976 amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act allows private individuals and Political Action Committees (PACs) to spend unlimited amounts on behalf of candidates.

Interestingly a U.S Supreme Court decision, Buckley vs. Valeo (424 U.S 1, 1976), had “ruled that limitations on such independent expenditures was an abridgement of the freedom of speech." Our Electoral Act 2006 does define maximum amounts which a presidential candidate down to a state assembly candidate could spend (between N500 million and N500, 000), while violations, according to section 93 of the Act, could attract sanctions such as imprisonment and fine.

The most striking feature of modern political campaign ads is the negativity of their content and tone and that seems to be what we have been witnessing with our current campaigns. In spite of the guidelines on political broadcasting issued by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), it recently fined 11 broadcast stations N500, 000 each for allegedly contravening its code on some of the guidelines.

I noticed that a lot of the radio commercials by Musiliu Obanikoro were harsh on the administration of Bola Tinubu as well as his supposed successor, Babatunde Fashola. I believe Obanikoro was merely reacting to the heavy negative press ads and TV commercials (e.g. the City Hall inferno) targeting him. The negative ads were very present in most of our dailies, which the contestants saw as a free-for-all platform for repeatedly attacking and counter-attacking their claims.

Complementing the ads were advertorials which enabled contestants to give details impossible to achieve with regular press ads, e.g. the “classic" “Obanikoro vs. Onikoro" which, I believe, did Koro in. Adams Oshiomole’s press ad, though poor in quality, shows PDP’s chieftain, Tony Anenih, with a feeding bottle meant for the baby he carries, i.e. Osunbor. With the headline “ Edo People, choose one…Puppet or Leader," the post-election violence that visited the state as a result of the purported loss suffered by the ad’s sponsor, might just have struck a correlation somehow.

Remember the clever Fashola “Vote Possibility" ad? It says we vote Not Depression Permanently Allowed (DPA), not Punishment Depressingly Present (PDP), not Lies Perpetuated (LP). Could Jimi Agbaje have retaliated with his “Agunmaniye" concept? It shows two trees, one lean and rooted in Bola Tinubu, while the other, robust (with a Jimi branch) and rooted in the late Obafemi Awolowo. The branches of the lean tree show pictures of Koro, Afikuyomi, Pedro, Gbajabiamila and Fashola. Literally, Agunmaniye means “tall without wisdom."

Should our politicians seek votes at any cost, even including a degraded sense of public regard for the candidates and the electoral process? Why do political practitioners increasingly resort to negative advertising? Even when media are used to communicate political truth (though subjective), the truth is negatively packaged, attacking the opponent’s character and record, e.g. the “Why Osun says No to Aregbesola" press ad. It shows ‘urban jungle’ pictorials of deplorable Lagos roads which the material claimed had gulped N150 million courtesy of the ministry over which the man presided as commissioner.

I do not know if you saw an advertorial that went too far- its headline was “One of the Lagos State Governorship Candidates is known to be a Drug Baron." The body copy urged volunteers with information to contact a couple of GSM numbers! If you seek my opinion I think whoever placed the advertorial should be talking to the NDLEA right now since he knows so much! An ad that also almost got me sweating was a triangular concept sponsored by Soul Lifters Political Organisation, Kaduna- it asked us not to vote for homosexuality (yandaudu), corruption (riba) and disloyalty (munafiki).

The ad was exposed quite late as the presidential election approached!

These two sampled ads, e.g. raise the question of Truth in negative political advertising. The swift reaction of AC to claims by Koro that his car was shot at by the opposition is a good example. In a counter- advertorial, AC paid exclusive attention to the dates the pictures were taken as recorded by the camera (a 2003 date or so). That, to me, further affected Koro’s credibility, if actually AC did not manipulate its counter- advertorial. It simply made Koro’s political communication consultants look mediocre- could they have been under intense pressures that they got careless about such details?

According to Expectancy theorists, language is a rule-governed system, and people develop norms and expectations with regard to appropriate usage in given situations. We shape our patterns of language and determine normative or non-normative patterns of language use. Fashola’s “When your tap is running…" is a positive ad. The message conforms to our norms and expectations though it hardly exerts any strong impact on our attitudes, bearing in mind that it is generally believed that politicians are not sincere and hardly fulfill their promises. It would have been a different thing if there was a unique proposition not offered by any other candidate.

On the other hand, Koro’s “When a man who sniffs hands over…" violates norms governing appropriate language usage. It violates our expectations and affects our receptivity. Ironically, such messages more or less have persuasive effects, depending on the circumstances. The “Obanikoro vs. Onikoro" classic is a positive violation of our linguistic expectations because it positively impacts on people’s attitudes and evokes persuasive effectiveness.

Koro’s flawed “car-shoot" advertorial suddenly turned his claim to a material which negatively violated our linguistic expectations, created a boomerang effect and made potential Koro voters change to the position opposite to the one canvassed by him.

Cognitive Response Model (CRM) advocates pay more attention to monitoring the effects of persuasive communications. According to them, when we are exposed to a message, we have psychological processes that determine the impact of the message. They identify three responses in the psychological process of a message acceptance as: counter- argument, source derogation and support argument.

If you ever tried defending Koro and ended up voting for him then you had “counter- argued." If you saw those who were “after" Koro as mudslingers who misrepresented information contained, especially in the “Obanikoro vs. Onikoro" classic, then you did derogate the source. Perhaps your hitherto positive image of Koro changed to negative after you were exposed to “What manner of family values," “See who wants to keep Lagos clean" and the whole issue of whether the man was a true son of the Obanikoro chieftaincy family or not. Then you did support all the arguments against the man.

All those negative ads surely created negative feelings toward Koro and positive feelings toward the Action Congress (AC) and Fashola as evidenced by the polls. “Obanikoro vs. Onikoro" could have reduced the image evaluation of Musiliu Obanikoro- “classic" because the content (presented evidence, etc.) was very difficult to disprove. How did Koro’s “enemies" gain access to his international passport? Also the greater perceived differences between “Koro" and “Fashy (them)" may have led voters to greater attitude polarization regarding both candidates. Voters therefore ended up strongly liking one candidate while strongly disliking the other.

It is probably safe to assume that the more credible a source is, e.g. Fashola (SAN), member of the ruling party, etc, the more persuasive the message would be. There were actually some well- executed negative ads from the stable of Koro, e.g. “Let’s talk about issues," which queries, among others, the N5 billion bond raised for the Eko Akete housing project, etc. “Retired Lagos State primary school teachers cry out," “Read between the lies," etc. However, the credibility of the source was the problem (despite sponsorship claims in a lot of cases by “coalition of concerned citizens for a better Lagos"). More so, did Koro think he would easily win the support of Hilda Williams’ loyalists?

What happened to Koro’s own negative ads? They boomeranged! Unfortunately, the consistent ones against Muhammadu Buhari by the African Democratic Development Initiatives in virtually every Nigerian newspaper did not boomerang in spite of their negativity.

Do you not see all these negative ads as an infringement on your right to decide for yourself? According to S. Iyengar and M. Prior (1999), they clash with widespread norms concerning the nature of citizenship and campaigns for public office. Negative political advertising has a way of annoying, threatening and repulsing the audience, e.g. my editor-friend.

However, I would like to conclude by saying that whether our votes counted or not, advertising surely plays a very significant role in our new political dispensation. The end of the elections should not signal the end of the use of advertising in governance. For the information of the victors, some of us have compiled loads of all they promised in their ads and we shall regularly critique the delivery of such promises- thank God we have the media platform at our disposal.

As for the negative political ads, there is really no long term effect. Like birth pains, the politicians should forget how much it hurt after a couple of days. With regard to financial losses, I am sure that God will provide! It is, however, healthy to further stretch the judicial system as some losers spoil to head for the election petition tribunal- this is democracy in action!