Press Groups Hold Meetings, Fact Checkers Get Organized

Michael Hedges October 11, 2022 - Follow on Twitter

Election campaigns are the main business for political operatives, after fund raising. More often than not their work begins long before election day. Sometimes it is unending. Messaging is a huge part of these campaigns. Get-out-the-vote calls have largely been replaced by highly targeted blitzes touting whatever message the pollsters believe will raise traffic to the election booth or mail box, where applicable. It’s a tough business. But, they use bots. Fact checkers have a big job.

Nigerians will be voting for president and vice president next February as well as Senate and House of Representative seats. Incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari is term-limited. State governors and houses of assembly representatives will face voters two weeks later, March 11. These will be the seventh consecutive elections since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999. The four previous election cycles were “characterized by smear campaigns, hate speeches, fake news, misinformation and disinformation,” observed Tekedia Institute (October 10). Media coverage - and campaign positioning - is already underway.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, 218.8 million according to United Nations estimates (July 2022). About 95 million are registered to vote, including 10 million registered in a government program earlier this year. Big issues fall along social and religious lines, youth unemployment and security. “Poverty could make some Nigerians to offer their votes for sale for a paltry sum, not minding the devastating consequences on good governance,” said Nigerian Guild of Editors president Mustapha Isah, reported news portal This Day (October 10). Polls, widely reported, vary widely.

Several election stakeholders, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), have organized conferences across the country to highlight election processes. In lofty terms, INEC chairperson Festus Okoye said “the media has the responsibility to mobilise the electorate to participate in the electoral process through awakening in them the consciousness of taking ownership of the political process,” quoted by Guardian Nigeria (October 9). The INEC has come under criticism from some quarters for partisanship.

With focus on print and online media, the International Press Center (IPC) has put together a monitoring task force. A training session was held in late September to prepare monitors for “the coverage and reportage of the electoral processes.” The objective is to “ensure that the media, including new and social media, provides fair, accurate, ethical and inclusive coverage of the electoral process,” said the IPC statement (October 8).

With its youthful population, online and social media is playing a significant role in the 2023 election campaigns. This has brought out more attention to fact checking, from monitoring dubious campaign claims to campaign ads. Nigeria has a relatively small contingent of local and regional fact checkers. They have formed, with assistance of Poynter Institute, a coalition maximize their impact.

“The media, especially social media, is awash with loads of information aimed at pushing one political agenda or the other,” said a joint statement of the collaborators in an open letter to Nigerian politicians, quoted by Poynter (October 11). “There are claims and counter-claims, some of which advance existing ethnic and religious narratives, and engender distrust among Nigerians. It is the duty of all citizens to ensure that this seventh general election since 1999 is credible by all standards. And you play a significant role in this; hence this open letter is addressed to you.” Disinformation and influence peddling, it added, are “dangerous trends.”

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