Abstract: This research examined the Influence of Political Hate Speech on Voters’ Choice. The study was anchored on Source Credibility Theory and Technological Determinism Theory. The research used survey research method while the data collection instrument adopted in this study was questionnaire. Accidental sampling technique was used to selected respondents. The data collected were analyzed in frequency and percentage with the aid of tables using SPSS version 23. Findings show that many of the respondents came across hate speeches online particularly on Facebook. Equally, many of the hate speeches that were trending on Facebook at the time of 2015 and 2019 electioneering campaigns were dominated by ethnicity and religion. It was recommended that political terrain of Nigeria demands lots of adjustment and formulation of law to guide against the abusive of social media in the future election.

Keywords: HATE SPEECH

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0       Background to the Study    

Elective democracy was introduced to Nigeria in May 1919, when the Townships Ordinance gave the right to some men to vote three members into Lagos Town Council. The first elections to the council were held on 29 March 1920. In 1922 a new constitution (known as the Clifford Constitution after Governor Hugh Clifford) was promulgated, which introduced four elected seats to the Legislative Council, three for Lagos and one for Calabar and the first general elections were held in Nigeria for the first time on 20 September 1923. The Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) won three of the four elected seats in the Legislative Council while Independence party won one seat (Annual Nigeria Report, 1923).

However, political mobilization, education and participation were done mainly by newspaper because radio was at its infancy which was even in the hand of the colonial dictatorship. From the colonial times, to post independence polls, to the enthronement of democracy in 1999, mass media have been a major platform for political communication, education and public mobilization for sustaining our democracy.

Meanwhile, advancement in communication technology in this century has paved way for modern means of mass communication facilitated by the internet (new media or social media) which are made possible by software and hardware. These have boosted political awareness, participation and reducing political apathy. Therefore, advancement in Information and Communication Technology otherwise known as media convergence in the 21st century has revolutionalised all facets of human activities including communication, interaction and politics.

Kur (2004) posits that the dynamic nature of the 2lst century and more centuries to come rest on technological revolution. No wonder, Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian English Professor in 1960 propounded the concept of “Global Village” regarding the entire globe as having the potentials of becoming a “global community” where information and news about anything and anywhere in the world would be readily available for anyone’s consumption in any part of the world (Christopher, 2012).

Worldatlas (2018) records that the country with the highest number of Internet users is China with over 746 million users, followed by the India with 391 million users while the United States of America Stand at third position with 245 million internet users. In Africa continent, Nigeria is leading with the internet users accounted for 86,219,965 as at March 30, 2017. According to Alex Ranking (2017), social media is the highest activities on the internet with over 16 million Nigerians on facebook.com (NNC, 2017).

Therefore, Suomen Toivo–Think Tank  (2012) in Adedeji (2015:1) describe “social  media  as new information network and information technology using a form of interactive communication skills, where users produce the content of information and interpersonal relationships are established and maintained in the process. A typical social media services could be content  sharing, web communities, or an Internet forum. In the same vein, Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) in Adedeji (2015:1) defined social media as a group of Internet-based application that are built upon the ideology and technology of web 2.0 and allows the generation and exchange of its content.

On the social media, the users are not passive like in the case of Television, Radio, and Newspaper, rather they are active in the formation and exchange of information (Adedeji, 2015) cited in Sweetser, 2008). An information that emanated from a member of the forum might become topical and even spread beyond where it was first discussed.  Typical  examples of  social  media  Include: Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Youtube and Google+”. Today, social media is deeply involved in shaping public opinion, perceptions and an awareness of events as they unfold. Information that used to be in the private domain are now in the public domain as citizens are now part of information gathering and dissemination (Robert and Godwin, 2012). 

More recently, citizen journalism (also known as public journalism) has become the media equivalent of grassroots democracy. This is because, as participatory democracy encourages its citizens to participate and contribute to the administration of the state, so citizen journalism allows for public engagement in the media practice.    

A tremendous change in the Nigerian political process has been the rise of social media. How social media has influenced politics in Nigeria is prominently shown in the way that political parties were unable to change election results because as voters were coming out of the various polling units, they were uploading the results to the various social media. The use of platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApps, Twitter, Blog, YouTube and Instagram have emerged as an important means of electioneering and the policing of election results in Nigeria (Audu, 2015).

However, for the first time in the political history of Nigeria, social media was highly used in the 2015 presidential election as a platform for political discussion, political interaction, political debate and other political education including voters’ registration and collection of Parmanent Voter’s Card, etc. This does not mean social media was perfect for political matters because it come with some limitations and abuse due to the uncensored nature of the platforms which made it easy to promote hate-speech, innuendo, sectionalism and ethno-interest, capable of instigate religions crisis among other things that can set the nation on fire which is the focus of this study.

2015 presidential electioneering campaign in Nigeria was characterised with lots of    hate speeches, campaign, name calling, abusive words etc which was considered to be dangerous for national unity, peace and integration especially in a multiethnic society like Nigeria. Many world actors even professed that Nigeria may sieze to exist and witness war in the 2015 elections as hate campaigns might ignite the collapse if not addressed on time.

 “Hate speech is universally used to describe any communication that denigrates a particular person or a group on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic. It can be in the form of speech, gesture, conduct, writing, or display” (Mrabure, 2016).

However, one of the issues promoted on the social media during the 2015 general election in Nigeria was name calling, abuse and hate speech (Nigeria Civil Society, 2015), though such issues were also reported in the traditional media (radio, television, newspaper). Mohammed (2014) reported that the then Katsina State Gov. Ibrahim Shema urged his supporters to attack opponents and referred to his political opponents as cockroaches urging his supporters to kill them as they kill cockroaches.

Similarly, the Ekiti State Governor, Peter Ayodele Fayose in January, 2015 repeatedly took out front page newspaper advertorials warning voters not to vote for the APC presidential candidate Muhamadu Buhari. These adverts, now widely known as “death wish advertorials” insinuated that the presidential candidate was likely to die in office if elected, like the late President, Yaradua. (Nigeria Civil Society, 2015).

Also, speaking during the PDP women presidential campaign rally in Kogi State, the Nation’s First Lady, reportedly described Gen. Buhari as unfit to be the country’s president, calling him old and brain dead. In another event, Nigerian First Lady, Patience Jonathan is also recorded as having urged the members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) to stone anyone that promises them change. “Change” is the slogan of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

In the same campaign speech given at a rally which held on Monday, March 2, in Calabar, the capital of Cross River state, Mrs Jonathan is quoted as saying “Our people no dey born shildren wey dem no dey fit count. Our men no dey born shildren throway for street. We no dey like the people for that side.” Thus making a derogatory statement obviously referring to the Northern parts of the country where the awful practice of child abandonment known as ‘Almajiri’ still occurs (Nigeria Civil Society, 2015).

All these statements credited to some prominent Nigerians was also traded on social media platforms which generated lots of actions, comments and reactions. In order to curb and prevent such in the future, a bill titled “Act to Prohibit Frivolous Petitions” was sponsored in the National Assembly by Senator Bala Na’allah of the Kebbi South All Progressive Congress for its first reading on November 24th 2015 at the Senate and a second reading passed December 2nd, 2015, though, it did not see the light of the date. It is against this background that the research set out to the influence of political hate speech on voters’ choice with an overview of its implications on future elections in Nigeria especially as 20123 General Election is not far from here.

1.2        Statement of the Problem

Critics have identified distortion of information, innuendos, hate-speeches, unbalanced report and the growing tendency for the public not to believe the social media platforms because lacks objectivity, accuracy, fairness etc) due to the absent of gate-keepers as major problems inherent in most of the social media as used in the 2015/2019 presidential election.

Before, the 2015 and 2019 general election, little or no research was conducted on hate speech or campaign especially in Nigeria and even where it exists, nothing of such focus on social media and hate speech campaign since the social media and internet for political campaign, mobilisation and other political decisions were still at its infancy during the last decades.    

However, preliminary observation suggests that hate speeches during the 2015 political era affected and influenced people believe and voting perception. Rwanda is a classic example on the consequences of Hate speech in the continent, it would be nothing compared to what could happen if a huge country like Nigeria is allowed to fall into the disaster of a hate-driven conflict. Even a cursory look at Syria and South Sudan is enough to stop someone in his tracks of anything that will bring strife and conflict.

For instance a grievous remarked was made by Rotimi Amechi preceding the 2015 election, that the (APC) will form a parallel government if the 2015 elections was rigged. Yet still Gen Buhari as he was called then saying that, if the 2015 elections were not fairly conducted “the dog and the baboon would be soaked in blood” Could it have meant that “Blood would floor that certain element would be drenched in blood? Who is the “monkey” and who is the baboon. But has any politician or party loyalist been convicted of crime of hate speech and violence in Nigeria. The National Assembly as at one time or the other proposed what they tagged anti-frivolous bill and another one on hate speech which has reached the second stage at the National Assembly.   

1.3       Research Objectives

Basically, the general objective of this research is to examine influence of Facebook political campaigns hate speech on voting decision of electorate in 2019 with an overview of its implications on future elections in Nigeria especially as 2023 General Election. The specific objectives are:

1. To determine the extent to which users perceived political campaign hate speech on Facebook in 2015/2019 presidential election.
2. To determine the extent to which political campaign hate speech on Facebook affected the decision of the electorate to vote for the party of their choice.

1.4       Research Questions:

Below are some of the research questions that generated to elicit responses from the respondents.

1. To what extent did users perceive political campaign hate-speech on Facebook 2015/2019 presidential election?
2. To what extent did the political campaign hate-speech on Facebook affect the decision of the electorate to vote for the party of their choice?

1.5       Significance of the Study

This work would be useful to political office aspirants on how to manage communication about themselves especially in the emerging social media space where content consumers are also producers.

This work is also useful to political parties and candidates in future elections on how to use the platform to mobilise, educate, enlighten and gain public support towards winning political seats. 

This work contributes to the existing body of knowledge available in journalism, media studies, mass communication, public relations, political advertising/marketing and political science as not much literature is available about political hate speeches on social media.

Future researchers and students would find the material relevant as it forms bulk literature that exist in the field of mass communication, political communication, etc that they can lay hands on when carrying out research related or similar to this.

Public relations, campaign managers and political media relations team or unit will learn How to counsel and advise their political party and candidate on the likely implication of their actions, statements, etc could cause the society.

1.6       Scope of the Study

The research which examines the influence of political hate speech on voters’ choice was narrowed in scope to Lagos electorates particularly to major strategic LGAs within Lagos mainland i.e Shomolu LGA, Ikeja LGA, Kosofe LGA, Oshodi/Isolo LGA respectively. The rationale for chosen Lagos is the believe that Lagos comprised almost every state in Nigeria and they can easily be represented since there is financial constraint to travel to the six geo-political zone of the federation. Proximity to the researcher was the main reasonle that made Lagos mainland a choice.

1.7       Operational Definition of Terms

Influence: It refers to how hate speeches campaign via Facebook determines electorate voting in 2015 presidential election.

Political Campaign: This refers to various political communications during electioneering for the purpose of gaining majority and win 2015 Presidential election. 

Hate Speech: These are statements that are unethical, sectional and of propaganda innunendo and abuse nature used against one another during the presidential election in 2015. i.e any communication that denigrates a particular person or a group on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic.

Voters Choice: This entails the decision of electorate to vote for a particular candidate or party during the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria.  

WHAT TO EXPECT: (Format: MS WORD, Chapter 1-5, Abstract, Table of Contents, Questionnaire and References)

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