There appears to be a consensus of opinion among
Nigerian media analysts that the 2015 election is the most expensive in the
history of elections in the country, with campaign expenditure running in
excess of N6.7 billion
Though nobody has been able to put an
accurate figure to it so far because of the way the campaigns were structured,
making it almost impossible to collate appropriate data.
However, judging from the plethora of
activities, the analysts said the total expenditure is not a small amount with
the two major rivals, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All
Progressives Congress (APC) being responsible for over 90 percent of the
expenditure.
According to them, what is being spent in
2015 campaign and congresses, far outweighs the total expenditure in previous
elections. For instance the PDP alone spent N2.24 billion in 2011 out of which
N1.93 billion, according to a report, was spent on national convention, while
N168, 443 million was for publicity and announcements.
The media analysts recognised that campaign
spending for elections in certain economies are costly, citing that the
presidential and congressional contest alone in America, in 2012, cost over $7
billion.
They are attributing the high campaign
expenses in the 2015 elections in Nigeria to the fierce rivalry between the PDP
and APC which had, as at February 9, 2015, cumulatively paid for over 2,100
full page adverts in six newspapers alone.
The number of pages in the identified
newspapers is in addition to advert publications by certain groups who are
loyal to either of the two major political parties. The media analysts believe
that the extension of the elections to March 28 and April 11, 2015, from
February 14 would further increase the total cost of the campaigns.
Media experts who believe that the PDP has
been accelerating in advert campaigns on various media channels with its
attendant cost, estimate that the party, in its determination to win more votes
in the forthcoming elections, would likely be spending more within the period,
so as to gain any lost ground.
It is however calculated that the parties
would within the remaining six weeks, be spending about the same amount they
spent before the elections were postponed.
One media analyst estimated the cost of the
media campaigns alone by the two major political parties to be about N3 billion
before the election was postponement. This means that the two parties could be
spending over N6 billion on campaigns.
On the creativity of the adverts, the expert
said the political parties were supposed to be articulating their strengths in
various sectors of the economy and creating advertisement to support them, but
regretted that they were not doing so.
Kola Ademolegun, former president of Outdoor
Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN) was not specific on the expected
amount to be spent, but was convinced that the sum would run into several
billions of naira across media channels.
Comparing the 2015 and 2011 elections,
Ademolegun said “ huge budgets have gone in to this year’s election. It has
been fierce and for it to be this fierce, much money had gone into it both in
above and below the line activities”.
Sola Odeja, Group Managing Director of the
Dmessage, a Nigerian integrated marketing communication firm, said that the
political parties were sure to raise supplementary budgets for their campaigns
for the remaining six weeks. Odeja could however but not put a figure to how
much they could have spent.
He said it would be difficult to calculate
the expended figure because in the first phase of the campaigns, which could
have been a clue to the figure, the parties hardly engaged engage the media
agencies.
While the renewed campaigns mean more money
for the media “it does not mean more money to the agencies.” Odeja said, describing
the 2015 campaign as “the most expensive and biggest advertising campaign that
has been run in this country,” regretting that advertisements were not
structured and the adverts were not going through the agencies.
Between January 12 and February 9, 2015, six
newspapers published a total of 1,566 full page adverts calculated to cost
about N861 million on an average of N550, 000 per page.
“It is a great moment for press and outdoor
adverting. The use of these platforms now is because the politicians need to
tell a lot of stories. They want people to have a recall by seeing the same
adverts, the same face and the same messages over and over,” Bayo Adisa a top
media buyer of PHd told BusinessDay recently.
Daniel Obi
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