THE IMPACT OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IN NIGERIAN POLITICAL PARTIES’ CAMPAIGN PROGRAMME IN THE SOUTH EAST OF NIGERIA

Political parties are faced with managing several challenges in trying to ensure that their candidates win election successfully. These challenges includes but not limited to finance, crisis management, media relations, information management, corporate image and reputation management, attitude and opinion management, event management, protocol functions, community relations, employee relations, corporate advertising, audio-visual productions, public enlightenment, corporate identity management, issues management, government relations, competitors relations and corporate social responsibility. In planning full course of action for a politician to gain political advantage among the electorate and political opinion leaders, efforts should be made to tackle the challenges mentioned above using public relations strategies, tools, tactics etc. public relations in essence, provides an articulate, credible and effective voice in pleading an idea on behalf of an individual or organization before the seat of public opinion in the hope that the projected idea will become acceptable. Political campaign is an organized effort by a political party or candidate for public office to attract the support of voters in an election. Hence, this study tries to examine the impact of public relations in the Nigerian political parties' campaign programme in the South East of Nigeria. The methodology adopted were the use of questionnaires, observations and interview in collecting fresh data. Random sampling method was adopted in selecting the individual respondents. Data collected were presented, interpreted and analysed using tables and percentages. Four hypotheses postulated for the study were tested. The following were my major findings in the course of the study. That some notable political parties engaged in the contest for elective political positions. And to achieve this lofty goal, they embarked on electioneering campaigns. The purpose served by this electioneering campaign includes; informing and educating the electorate about the party’s name, logo, manifesto, and other identity which differentiates it from other political parties; canvassing or soliciting for votes on the election day; creating mutual understanding and garnering goodwill, projecting the good image of the party and the contesting candidates; dispersing rumor and opinion management; and opportunity to interact with the electorate face to face. Political parties used public relations tools, strategies and tactics to achieve their purpose of electioneering campaign which is to win the votes of the greater majority of the electorate. The study also found out that public relations tools used by political parties in their campaign programme includes; press release, feature/articles writing, press conference, political rallies and voter’s enlightenments.