An election poll commissioned by BusinessDay Media and conducted by NOIPolls Limited in November 2014 revealed that 57 per cent of Nigeria’s adult population believes political campaigns are not focusing on current issues in the country with this perception cutting across all regions.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]
Although residents of North-West zone maintained a different perspective as the majority in this region believe the campaigns of politicians are focused on addressing the present issues, 48 per cent of Nigerians stated politicians should focus on addressing security in their campaigns to make meaningful impact. This stance was mostly maintained by residents of the North-East (70%) and North-West (62%) given the current state of insecurity in these regions. Job Creation and Education were also considered as priority for focus among other areas.
More findings revealed that addressing the afore-mentioned issues would greatly influence the voting decisions of most Nigerians in the 2015 elections as reported by majority of the respondents (64%) surveyed. A view of pressing issues in Nigeria demonstrates Education (67%) as the most pressing national issue that needs to be tackled, followed by Electricity (39%), Infrastructure (38%), and Water (34%), among others; even though Nigerians believe current campaigns should focus on security.
Elections in Nigeria generally witness the adoption of several competitive strategies by political parties and candidates to solicit the support and followership of citizens; one of which is through political campaigns. Political campaigns enable candidates better know how to allocate their resources and develop better insight into how the electorate makes their voting decisions. They are organised efforts by a political party or candidate for public office to attract the support of voters in an election.
Since Nigerian voters are increasingly becoming less tied to a particular party, ahead of the February 2015 general elections, political candidates have heightened their campaigns with political messages in order to manage the media and to maximize the number of votes.
Analysis by geo-political zones revealed that the North-West (89%) and South-East (87%) regions accounted for the largest proportions of Nigerians who expressed optimism for voting in the 2015 general elections when compared to other regions, although a majority of residents in all the geo-political zones expressed optimism in voting in the 2015 general elections, with a minimum 76%(North Central). Also, respondents aged 46-60 and 18-21 years showed more optimism for voting in the 2015 elections than other age-groups.
