(from left) Atiku Abubakar, Geeneral Babangida and Goodluck Jonathan.
As campaigns for the 2011 election in Nigeria gather momentum, politicians have intensified their courtship with service providers in order to reach out to as many Nigerians as possible.
Political Train’s private investigation revealed that unlike what obtained in the past whereby aspirants engaged in door-to-door campaign to woo the electorate, they have applied the modern ICT system.
Most aspirants have applied the website campaign system, while some have engaged the service provision of the major service providers like MTN, ZAIN, GLO and Etisalat to send their political mission and vision to people in their various constituencies.
President Goodluck Jonathan’s supporters have in recent times been sending various messages to Nigerians via SMS, explaining why they must vote for the Bayelsa-born teacher turned politician in 2011.
Same goes for the campaign teams of former vice president, Atiku Abubakar and former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (retd). Kwara state’s incumbent governor, Dr. Bukola Saraki is not left out of the innovation.
At the state level, aspirants vying for Governorship, Senate, House of Representatives and states Hoouses of Assembly have also customised their messages on the internet and SMS on phones explaining why they are contesting for the various positions.
Coining the messages in their campaign names, the aspirants, we gathered, decided to engage the service providers for a larger outreach and to reduce their campaign budgets.
When contacted on phone, some of the aspirants who begged for anonymity said that they have realised that most of their budgeted money for the campaigns do not reach their source, hence the new dimension.
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