Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466

brill.com/mata

Electoral Music Reception A Meta-Analysis of Electorate Surveys in the Nigerian States of Lagos and Bayelsa

Garhe Osiebe Lagos, [email protected]

Abstract

Audiences in are a grossly under-researched demographic.This paper centres on the comparative analysis of two electoral audience-based surveys conducted between April and September 2012 in the Nigerian states of Bayelsa and Lagos; following the April 2011 presidential election in Nigeria that ushered the erstwhile President Good- luck Jonathan into power. The surveys sought to know the electorates’ reaction to the electoral campaign songs that endorsed Jonathan and how these songs informed their choice of candidate. The paper’s analysis combines an appreciation of the surveys’ results and the surveys’ procedure while focusing on the middle-ground between aes- thetics and politics in the context.

Keywords elections – audiences/electorates – Nigeria – prebendalism

Introduction

Karin Barber draws on Deborah James’s work “‘Music of origin’”1 in arguing that “audiences themselves, by choosing to participate, constitute themselves as members of a collectivity [and] thus be active participants in the emergence

1 Deborah James, “‘Music of origin’: class, social category and the performers and audience of kiba, a South African migrant genre,” Africa 67.3 (1997): 454–475.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/18757421-04902011Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 440 osiebe of new alignments.”2 She describes kiba performances, which are adaptations of an old Sotho oral genre as a central means of signalling alignment with the people of the nation or traditional belief and in contrast to white- or Christian- oriented performance types, although these alignments meant different things in different contexts. Barber goes on to show the significance of James’s study in how audiences constitute themselves around kiba, thereby affirming the things they have in common with the performers. As a powerful active organizing principle in different people’s experience, the kiba became a focus of patronage from the national elite of South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (anc). James’s work is so far the most extensive examination of popular music audiences in Africa. The present study takes up from James and Barber to carry out, on a special platform, a quantitatively based analysis of electoral audiences in Africa’s largest democracy. This paper is an effort to fill the gap in research into audiences through a meta-analytical assessment of two separate audience-based studies carried out in the Nigerian states of Lagos and Bayelsa by Campaign Professionals (tcp), a Nigeria-based political communications and polling organization. The surveys were conducted between April and September 2012 to determine the effects of electoral music (campaign jingles) on voting patterns in the April 2011 elections. Since electoral music loses its relevance once elections are concluded, the paper presents ‘electoral songs’ as by-products of elections which encourage the tendency to switch genres among popular musicians who otherwise specialize in other forms of popular music. Electoral music is part of the subgenre of political praise music.3 tcp took a survey of sampled populations of at least suffrage age in select areas in the aforementioned states. The stated objective of the investigation was to reach conclusions about how actual voters at the elections responded to the accompanying electoral songs and how these contributed to choices made at the ballot. Before the data of tcp’s surveys are presented for analysis, it is worth engag- ing in a contextual discussion of circumstances pertaining to the present study: The run-up to the 16 April 2011 presidential election in Nigeria was character- ized by a few firsts: it was, for a start, the first time that an ensemble of popular musicians and a core majority of entertainment practitioners had actively cam- paigned for a presidential candidate on such a scale in Fourth Republic Nigeria. Anne Schumann terms the “patriotic galaxy” the constellation of organizations

2 Karin Barber, “Preliminary Notes on Audiences in Africa,” Africa 67.3 (1997): 355. 3 The collection of the songs singing the praises of political leaders.

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 441 that proliferated in support of the regime of Laurent Gbagbo in Ivory Coast.4 Indeed, it was in Côte d’Ivoire that popular culture was employed as propa- ganda in exploiting conflicts to the benefit of the Gbagbo government. Analo- gously, the Campaign Organization sought to exploit every issue—conflicts and non-conflicts alike—likely to promote the electoral mar- ketability of Jonathan’s candidature.With the charm of a prospective Nigeria of ‘good luck’, popular musicians had their work cut out across tribe and tongue. Nationally, the Campaign Organization sought the musical services of Zaaki Azzay to write and record a campaign song in the , the rapper 2Shotz to write and record a campaign song in Igbo, Dekunle Fuji to write and record a campaign song in Yorùbá, the Mamuzee twins to do the same in Ijaw. Onyeka Onwenu and a cross-section of Nollywood actors and actresses were enlisted to write and record a campaign song in English, and D’banj to do the same in Pidgin English. It is thus safe to say that Goodluck Jonathan had an impressive patriotic galaxy of popular musicians advocating for his 2011 presi- dential bid. This panoply of multilingual coverage makes sense when one considers that the April 2011 presidential election in Nigeria was the first campaign in the postcolonial nation’s political history in which a major party put forward a candidate regarded as belonging to a ‘minority’—from none of the Yorùbá, Hausa, or Igbo ethnic majorities—as its presidential flag-bearer. Being the representative of a minority, he needed all the support he could muster through popular culture and languages. To this extent, tcp’s surveys, centred on the popular music appeal of the Goodluck Jonathan candidature, are a potentially powerful resource.

Appraising the Survey Sites

It is noteworthy that since the inception of Nigeria’s democracy in 1999, has been governed by the opposition (Alliance for Democracy: 1999–2006; Action Congress/Action Congress of Nigeria: 2006–2013; and All Progressives Congress: 2013–to date). Bayelsa, on the other hand, has been a stronghold of

4 Anne Schumann, “Songs of a New Era: Popular Music and Political Expression in the Ivorian Crisis,” African Affairs 112/448 (2013): 440–459. Whereas Schumann’s ‘contested spaces’ draws attention to ‘patriotic’zouglou songs which simultaneously incorporated the idioms of ‘praise’ and ‘protest’, it needs to be pointed out that the valency of ‘praise’ and ‘protest’ depends on whose interests are furthered or opposed. One man’s praise may be another’s protest.

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 442 osiebe the People’s Democratic Party (pdp), which has been the ruling party through- out Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, until 2015. At the 2011 elections under review, the pdp’s Goodluck Jonathan recorded 504,811 votes in Bayelsa, representing 99.83% of the total votes cast in that state. In Lagos, where voter turnout was a dismal 31.84% (the third lowest in the federation after Ogun and Ondo states, also in the southwest), Jonathan polled 1,281,688 votes, representing 65.90% of the total votes cast in the state.5 Lagos is the nation’s former capital city; it was not until 1991 that it was replaced by Abuja. Nevertheless, Lagos remains Nigeria’s melting pot, the heart of commerce and most cosmopolitan city. Bayelsa, by contrast, is one of the most recent states to be created, belonging to those formed under the regime of General on 1 October 1996. Prior to this time, the state was under the administration of .6 With a population of some two million inhabitants, it is only now beginning to undergo urbanization. is also home to Goodluck Jonathan, President, and correspondingly the ‘minority’ referenced above. Jonathan is not only the first Bayelsan indigene to be President; he is also the first President from the region in South– South Nigeria. Since independence, Nigeria’s ethnic majorities have rotated government leadership among themselves with those from the Hausa/Fulani north pre- dominating. ’s combined eleven-year stint as Nigeria’s leader together with the three-months interim national government of Ernest Shonekan puts the southwest in second place. The Igbo of the southeast have had top job representation in the persons of Nnamdi Azikiwe and Major Gen- eral J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi. The best the minorities of the South–South managed was the position of Vice-President: Admirals Augustus Aikhomu and —both ‘minority’ representatives from —served as second in command to Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar respec- tively.7 Jonathan’s emergence as the vice presidential candidate of the ruling pdp in the 2007 general election was thus no novelty. However, it was ground-breaking to the extent that, hitherto, major political parties fielded presidential and vice presidential candidates to reflect the ethnic majorities in Nigeria. Indeed, it was considered suicidal to field a ‘minority’ in a contest where the votes of the

5 Nigeria Elections Coalition, Nigerian Presidential Elections—2011 (final) (2014), http://nigeriaelections.org/presidential.php (accessed 11 December 2016). 6 Bayelsa.gov.ng, Bayelsa State: Glory of All Lands (2014), http://bayelsa.gov.ng/portal (accessed through 2014–2017). 7 Toyin Falola & Matthew Heaton, A (Cambridge: Cambridge up, 2008).

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 443 ethnic majorities are vital. The sudden recognition of ‘minorities’ by fielding one of theirs as vice presidential candidate for the 2007 elections was clearly a response to the long years of urging by the people of the oil-rich Niger Delta, from where over 90% of the nation’s primary wealth has been drawn over the decades. Bayelsa State plays a significant role in the oil-producing venture of Nige- ria. Crude oil, which is the main driver of the Nigerian economy, was first discovered in Oloibiri in the local government area of today’s Bayelsa state in 1956. The state is responsible for about 30–40% of Nigeria’s oil produc- tion, making it the largest crude-oil reserve in the Delta region.8 The people of the region have protested against the chronic material and infrastructural neglect under successive governments. Due to the activities of onshore and offshore crude-oil exploration, the region has suffered massive environmental degradation, grossly inhibiting the agricultural opportunities which are oth- erwise the stock-in-trade for the locals. These realities have led to campaigns for ‘resource control’ and a better derivation formula through incessant nego- tiations with the federal government over percentages of revenue allocation, which currently sits at 13%. Other palliatives by the central government, including the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Commission (nddc) in 2000 and the Niger Delta Ministry (2008), have done little to address the damage done to the region through exploratory activities of the past half a century. Bayelsa state is bound on the west by Rivers State, on the east and south by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the north by . Many of her communities are almost—and in some cases completely—surrounded by water, making them inaccessible by road. The emergence of a ‘son of the soil’ in the person of Goodluck Jonathan as presidential flag-bearer of the ruling pdp in the 2011 elections triggered more hope among the people than lucid prose can effectively communicate.

Characterizing Goodluck Jonathan’s 2011 Presidential Campaign

With an ensemble of popular musicians contracted to create campaign songs, the Goodluck Jonathan presidential campaign team signalled its belief in and subscription to the potency of popular music. There appeared to be a convic- tion that since “popular music […] not only expresses socio-cultural reality, but

8 Bayelsa.gov.ng, Bayelsa State: Glory of All Lands (2014), http://bayelsa.gov.ng/portal (accessed through 2014–2017).

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 444 osiebe generates it,”9 creating the reality of a Goodluck Jonathan presidency was pos- sible once that notion was made a socio-cultural reality expressed in popular music by popular musicians.

Music functions as a trenchant political site in Africa primarily because it is the most widely appreciated art form on the continent. […] Music is Africa’s most salient popular art and the one that is most comprehensively transmitted through the mass media, and this gives it exceptionally wide reach. It constitutes a large, powerful platform through which public opinion can be influenced.10

The campaign machinery’s use of music in the presidential election bid of Goodluck Jonathan was accordingly immense. What is striking is that each of the musical acts and groups played its own distinctive style of music. There was a general alertness to the special nature of the occasion, inasmuch as the campaign jingles drew little on the prior political and generic capital of the musicians contributing. Before his present appointment as Director General of the National Orienta- tion Agency (noa), Mr Mike Omeri was the Director of Research and Strategy for the Goodluck/Sambo campaign organization which oversaw the 2011 pres- idential election campaign of Nigeria’s erstwhile ruling People’s Democratic Party. Mr Omeri had been seconded to the campaign organization from the office of Senator David Mark, Nigeria’s immediate past Senate president, where he was the Special Adviser to the Senate President on Politics and Govern- mental Matters. Before this, Mr Omeri had held a number of sensitive politi- cal offices, including: Head of Publicity, Arewa House (1994); Director of Press Affairs in Plateau and Nasarawa States (1994–1997); Commis- sioner of Social Development, Youth, Sports and Culture (1997); Commissioner of Information (during which time the Nasarawa Broadcasting Service started operation); and Commissioner of Works, Housing and Transport.11 In order to obtain further insight into the depth and breadth of the co-optation-cum- proliferation, I spoke with Mr Omeri, who offered the following useful informa- tion:

9 Susan Shepler, “Youth Music and Politics in Post-War Sierra Leone,” Journal of Modern African Studies 48.4 (2010): 628. 10 Liz Gunner, “Jacob Zuma, the social body and the unruly power of song,” African Affairs 108/430 (2008): 29. 11 Mike Omeri, “Biography of Mike Omeri” (2011), http://mike-omeri.blogspot.co.uk/ (ac- cessed 21 June 2016).

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 445

Because we had already moved far and were faster, most of the other candidates couldn’t get the popular musicians who could appeal, to sing for them because they were already in the group working for Jonathan. So what they decided to do was to sit there to criticize the acts. To say for instance: ‘Country, we are thinking of serious things, and you people are busy dancing. So if you want to dance, go and join those people. If you want to be serious about the country come and work with us.’ But then the message still didn’t sink because we now replied that ‘our country needs to engage everyone. The musicians are also contributing to the process of development, and some of the popular themes for development can also be captured in music’ … So we said all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. And we are not saying we are coming to be dancing every day, but we are using this medium to convey a message.12

The foregoing underscores the sheer weight and momentum behind the ma- chinery known as incumbency in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic political theatre. In a country with as vast a population as Nigeria’s, and a correspondingly rich and competitive popular music industry, it is practically the stuff of leg- end that a single presidential candidate representing one party in a multi- party democracy had succeeded in appropriating every “popular musician who could appeal.” The concentration of popular musicians in campaigning for the incumbent camp ensured that popular music application by other candi- dates at the April presidential election was marginal. Mr Omeri’s submission nonetheless emphasizes the fluidity of co-optation in political praise (electoral campaign) music by an incumbent machine determined to secure electoral vic- tory. The significance of the campaign jingles becomes apparent once one notes that three of the electoral songs are recorded inYorùbá,Hausa, and Igbo respec- tively, representing the major ethnic groups in Nigeria. The Mamuzee twins’ campaign song is also listed because it is recorded in Ijaw—Jonathan’s kin and fourth-largest ethnic group. It was crucial, too, that the official languages of English and Pidgin English be included by the Director and his “patriotic galaxy.” Owing to the national outlook appropriated by the survey, the three non-native electoral songs formed the core of the tcp questionnaire. These are “Run, Goodluck run” (2010) by Onyeka Onwenu; “I believe in Goodluck” (2010) by Nollywood acts; and “I go vote for Goodluck” (2010) by D’banj.

12 Interview with Mike Omeri, National Orientation Agency Director General, Abuja, 7 July 2014.

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 446 osiebe

An analysis of D’banj’s “I go vote for Goodluck” shows that of a total of a hundred and thirty-three words that make up the song, sixty-two are either salutations or names, representing more than 45% of the entire textual con- tent. Interestingly, the word ‘vote’ occurs only three times in the body of the work, representing less than two and a half percent of the entire piece. As “I go vote for Goodluck” was a hurried election-hour piece, deficiencies, even while assessing it as a regular praise song—say, the Oriki in traditional Yorùbá folklore—are to be expected. Indeed, not only was it a rushed song relying on the rhythm of a popular hit13 by the singer (the hugely successful “Scapegoat,” 2010), but the piece also failed to measure up to previous campaign jingles recorded in post-independence Nigeria. Earlier presidential jingles recorded for the candidatures of or M.K.O. Abiola—Nigerian polit- ical icons—became historical references for the era when they were recorded. “I go vote for Goodluck,” by contrast, was a cavalcade of salutations at best. But this jingle did manage to hold, because it exploited common cultural ground shared with audiences.14 “I believe in Goodluck” would require a more detailed analysis than textual statistics: the uniqueness of the sudden appearance of familiar actors and actresses typically united under ‘Nollywood’ on home-video screens, in the place of well-choreographed singers of an endowed choir was spectacle at its exploited best. It bespeaks the length to which campaign creativity can go in electoral Nigeria. “I believe in Goodluck” also serves to indicate the magnitude of genre-switching across arts rather than merely within an art.Whereas D’banj and many others in the Goodluck Jonathan “patriotic galaxy” switched genres in order to record political (electoral) music, what these actors and actresses did through “I believe in Goodluck” was art-switching: they had left the theatre for the music studio. Suddenly, Nigeria’s television darlings were re-tuning their voices, all for Goodluck Jonathan. The outcome was impressive; although the song also spent too much time harping on the candidate’s name, it did outdo D’banj’s piece and many others in musical integrity. The ‘ultra-patriotic galaxy’ from Nollywood reached new heights through this campaign song.

13 “Scapegoat” by D’banj (Lagos: Mo’ Hits Records; 2010). 14 Cf. the use of chimurenga (or liberation) songs in Rhodesia’s freedom movement of the 1970s, as expounded by Alec J.C. Pongweni, “The Chimurenga Songs of the Zimbabwean War of Liberation,” in Readings in African Popular Culture, ed. Karin Barber (Bloomington: International African Institute/Indiana up, 1997): 65–66, as cited by Liz Gunner in “Africa and orality,” in The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature, ed. F. Abiola Irele & Simon Gikandi (Cambridge: Cambridge up, 2000): 11.

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 447

Onyeka Onwenu is about the only Nigerian woman to work on the music scene throughout the second and fourth republics—a space upwards of three decades. Her talents are also on display as an actress and as a politician. A mem- ber of Nigeria’s pdp, Onwenu sang General Abacha’s praises through the noto- rious two-million-man march intended to perpetuate him in office. She was an ardent supporter of General Obasanjo’s presidency (1999–2007) before record- ing “Run Goodluck run” in 2010 for Jonathan’s election campaign.15 This song sees Onwenu delivering an emotion-laden track that ticks off the rags-to.riches credentials of Jonathan through his political career until his ascendancy to the presidency. It is a compelling cry urging Jonathan to ignore critics and contest a seat that fate has reserved for him. Like most other campaign jingles engineered by the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organization, “Run Goodluck run,” for all its proverb-laden and slogan-tinged content, was centred on the imperative of the name ‘good luck’. Whereas “song and dance can […] become a means of empowerment and a means by which one inhabits or reinhabits a tainted social space,”16 the collec- tion of campaign songs for the 2011 Goodluck Jonathan presidential campaign care about little beyond the imperative of ‘good luck’ and how their client and candidate was the guarantor for cleaning up Nigeria’s tainted social space. The issues of inadequate provision of electricity, high rates of inflation, con- tinued currency devaluation, an alarming percentage of educated yet unem- ployed youth, widespread poverty, unsatisfactory healthcare delivery, irrespon- sible government borrowing, and chronic general insecurity courtesy of the dreaded terrorist organization Boko Haram (and others)–these were all pres- ences behind the 2011 campaign. But the popular music interlude providers stuck to their brief of providing catchy interlude entertainment, sing their mes- sianic client’s praises at the expense of declaring a concrete agenda for the incoming leader. The superficiality of the campaign jingles upon whose rhythms Goodluck Jonathan rode to electoral victory is central to this study of electorates. How did the different electorates across various regions in Nigeria receive the songs? What impact did these jingles have on voters and, indeed, on non-voters (voter apathy)? These questions form the core of tcp’s electorate survey conducted in the Nigerian states of Lagos and Bayelsa.

15 “Run Goodluck run” by Onyeka Onwenu was but one of several songs played at President Goodluck Jonathan’s declaration for a second term of office on 11 November 2014. 16 Liz Gunner, “Jacob Zuma, the social body and the unruly power of song,” 30.

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 448 osiebe

Discussing the Survey Results

Two surveys form the nucleus of this comparative analysis regarding the recep- tion of campaign music. The first is, fittingly, one conducted in Goodluck Jonathan’s native Bayelsa by tcp, a full-service market research and evalua- tion company specializing in polling, political and reputation management, and social and rural research. The survey was conducted between April and September 2012—between the election and six months after the election— among 188 Bayelsans. The second was carried out by the same polling organi- zation. tcp is becoming a reliable firm that provides information on issues, atti- tudes, and trends shaping the Lagos State axis and Nigeria as a whole.This latter poll was also executed between April and September 2012—between the elec- tion and six months after the election—this time among 214 Lagosians. Indeed, both surveys were launched soon after the April 2011 presidential election, mak- ing the opinions gathered fresh. Both polls entailed the use of appropriate instruments, such as questionnaires and interviews as well as the techniques of representative sampling. It was essential to establish an appropriate ethos for the survey, for tcp was entering a domain where record-keeping is almost non-existent. The impetus, therefore, to engage with an electorally qualified demographic of audiences in Africa’s most populous nation is indeed laudable. Moreover, “In elections especially, the media do not cover the campaign; they are the campaign. We must ask how, not whether, the media matter.”17 In similar vein,

To observe and analyse the composition of audiences is only a first stage. The main issue is what the cultural experience gives to those people […] any account of the politics of popular culture must address the way that culture works on those who hear or see it.18

This established, we may now proceed to critically analyse tcp’s survey. In order to discuss the tcp survey results, this paper shall be guided by a key research question, namely: To what extent do the voters believe that their political opinions are shaped by relevant campaign songs? In order to answer this question, the responses to questions 7, 8, and 9 of the questionnaire19

17 Martin Harrop, “Voters,” in The Media in British Politics, ed. Jean Seaton & Ben Pimlott (Aldershot & Brookfield vt: Gower/Avebury, 1987): 46. 18 John Street, “The Politics of Popular Culture,” in The Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology, ed. Kate Nash & Alan Scott (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004): 310–311. 19 See Appendix below.

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 449 need to be analysed. It is essential to comprehend the document conveying the results of the tcp survey attached as an appendix. The questions dealt with listenership of the various election jingles and the influences of these on respondents’ voting choices. Perusal of tcp’s tabular presentation shows that the campaign rallies and accompanying music performances were followed closely in both states re- viewed. It is particularly instructive that respondents in Bayelsa State signalled even higher patronage of the electoral activities leading up to the April 2011 elections, as evidenced in each of the variables from the questionnaire. Indeed, an emphatic 93.6% of the respondents in Bayelsa said that they either attended or watched the Goodluck Jonathan declaration ceremony held in Eagles Square, Abuja. The figure of 86.9% obtained in the same inquiry from the respondents in Lagos confirms the huge following enjoyed by the declaration ceremony. Similarly, whereas 71.8% of the respondents in Bayelsa ticked Yes to either watching or attending the Goodluck/Sambo ‘Youth for Transformation Rally’ held in Eagles Square, Abuja; a reduced total of 52.3% expressed the same in Lagos. Perhaps the most striking feature of this compar- ative appraisal is seen in how 73.9% of the respondents in Bayelsa as against 65.4% of those in Lagos agreed to at least watching the Goodluck Jonathan presidential-bid concert held at the muson centre, Lagos. While this concert was broadcast on national television and other media, a higher percentage of respondents who followed in Bayelsa was recorded than in Lagos where the concert was held, which is an interesting yield from the questionnaire data. A basic criticism of the tcp questionnaire is that it failed to distinguish live- audience experiences from mediated-audience experiences. Certainly being present at an event or rally provokes a different feeling than seeing such an event or rally on television, or listening to proceedings on radio, for that mat- ter. It is true that certain events have a tendency to saturate television and radio programming, as do newspapers in Nigeria. In such a sports-loving country, spectacles such as the Olympics and Commonwealth Games (the World Cup equivalent for any participating team sent by the nation to represent her) usually command a sizeable following from citizens, who trail broadcasts of the performances on radio and television. In similar vein, political events such as campaign speeches and rallies have in recent times caught the attention of the core of the Nigerian people. This increased interest explains why non-partisan interests ensure that events such as political debates are broadcast on national electronic media. Add to this the sponsored broadcast of the events by different political parties, and the political media saturation in Nigeria’s election seasons becomes comprehensible. That a segment of the population may not own a

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 450 osiebe television or radio set only negligibly affects the followership of these events, owing to the active interest of viewing/listening centres, which typically double as eateries and pubs. On question 8, which pertains to watching or listening to specific cam- paign performances by musicians in the run-up to the 2011 presidential elec- tion, respondents in Bayelsa indicated 89.9%, 76.6%, and 95.7% awareness of D’banj’s “I go vote for Goodluck,” Onwenu’s “Run Goodluck run,” and Nolly- wood’s “I believe in Goodluck” respectively. The figures from Lagos on the same performances were 88.3%, 73.4%, and 76.2%, as indicated in Table l1. It is needless to rehash the results of the questionnaire analysis for purposes of presentation here, as table b2 shows that, of the total of 188 respondents assessed by the study in Bayelsa, 72.6% (the average of the five figures from the a–e variables of question 9) stated that they had made voting choices based on campaign rallies and music. This is all the more conspicuous, considering that the average of the same variables from respondents in Lagos resulted in approximately 21.4% (Table l2). Questionnaires, particularly of the close-ended variant, have been perenni- ally plagued by answers that suggest that respondents simply wish to satisfy an investigator’s suspected intentions. Perhaps, therefore, the Bayelsa-Lagos per- centage ratio of 72.6 : 21.4 was a reflection of respondents in both states who responded in the light of what they thought the survey administrators wanted to hear: i.e. most respondents in Bayelsa ticked ‘Yes’ to having voted as a conse- quence of campaign songs, while most respondents in Lagos ticked ‘No’. Then again, it is possible that respondents were approving of music that praised the politicians they already supported. This appears more plausible, consid- ering that voter turnout at the election under review was 85.61% and 31.84% in Bayelsa and Lagos respectively.20 More importantly, if the charter of tcp’s survey was to show how the music actually shaped voter choice, then the questionnaire could have been better designed to dependably demonstrate these electoral consequences. The ques- tion of consequences can hardly be answered effectively by asking people if they were influenced by hearing a song, because individual responses may be unreliable and the impact of campaigns may be subconscious. What a survey would need in order to show this in an ideal world would be a before-and-after survey that could show the difference that listening to a song makes to how an

20 Nigeria Elections Coalition, Nigerian Presidential Elections—2011 (final) (2014), http:// nigeriaelections.org/presidential.php (accessed 11 December 2016).

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 451 individual thinks/behaves. One way of doing this without a before-and-after survey would be to see whether people who said they had heard campaign songs had different voting habits from those who had not.This could be done by using regression analysis, although it is uncertain whether tcp’s survey could get down to the level of individual songs or would need to talk about songs in general. The tcp questionnaire is also flawed to the extent that it only inquires about the performance of music at campaign rallies. What about radio and tv? What about public transportation? Or bars, restaurants, nightspots? Certainly, these must have an effect on voting behaviour even though an exact measurement of the degrees of influence may be cumbersome. The tcp questionnaire could have benefitted from a more thorough engagement with the places where campaign songs were heard. Questions like Who plays them?, Why?, Were the songs popular?, Are they still being played (out of nostalgia, or because they are catchy?) would have made the survey more robust and more representative of the vast audiences that exist in Nigeria between Bayelsa and Lagos. The population of voters in both states suggests that the scale of the survey is barely representative. As such, proffering explanations of the trend of results from the questionnaire analysis requires the focus to change to the ‘Bayelsan’ identity of Goodluck Jonathan. How is a shared identity expressed by Bayelsans, and how objective are Lagosians in responding to questions about a non-Lagosian? Manuel Castells, in the inaugural volume of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, casts light on the influences of identity:

Identity has been at the roots of meaning since the dawn of human soci- ety. It is becoming the main, and sometimes the only, source of mean- ing in a historical period characterized by widespread destructuring of organizations, delegitimation of institutions, fading away of major social movements; and ephemeral cultural expressions. People increasingly or- ganize their meaning not around what they do but on the basis of what they are, or believe they are.21

The anomalies deduced from the data analysis of Bayelsa and Lagos States thus have to be understood in line with the role that identity plays. The presidential- bid concert held in Lagos, yet followed by a higher percentage of respondents in Bayelsa than in Lagos, offers a basis for arguing that the identity of respondents

21 Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society,The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, vol. 1 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002): 3.

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 452 osiebe surely affects the nature of responses on matters to do with like or unlike identity. After all, as John Fiske states,

In a consumer society, all [information] have cultural as well as functional values. […] In order to be popular, then, cultural commodities have to meet quite contradictory needs. […] If a particular commodity is to be made part of popular culture, it must offer opportunities for resisting or evasive uses or readings, and these opportunities must be accepted.22

Indeed, the cultural commodity as represented by the popular campaign music component of the 2011 presidential bid of a Bayelsan must be accepted as offering opportunities for resistant or evasive uses or readings by audiences of Bayelsan and Lagosian identity. Invariably, again,

I was aware of the fact that identity is an invention from the very begin- ning. […] Identity is formed at the unstable point where the ‘unspeakable’ stories of subjectivity meet the narratives of history, of a culture. […] I believe it is an immensely important gain when one recognizes that all identity is constructed across difference and begins to live with the poli- tics of difference. […] Potentially, discourse is endless: the infinite semio- sis of meaning.23

Considering that “the average man from northern Nigeria has had no concrete material benefit to show for the period his kinsmen have been in charge of governance in Nigeria at the central level” (anonymous interviewee, 2014), it is evident that the Bayelsan respondents to tcp’s survey together with their ilk did not necessarily expect to fare better than their northern compatriots regard- ing rewards-through-a-kinsman-in-power. The sway of affection and emotion towards legitimizing a kinsman by the notion of ‘I voted for Goodluck, and not the pdp’ (several interviewees, 2014); and effectively the findings of the survey is therefore borne out of a communal sense of shared identity (heritage, stories etc.) with the Goodluck candidature at the time of campaigning and voting,

22 John Fiske, “The Commodities of Culture,” in The Consumer Society Reader, ed. Maurice Lee (Malden ma: Blackwell, 2000): 283, 287. 23 Stuart Hall, “Minimal Selves,” in Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader, ed. Houston A. Baker, Jr., Manthia Diawara & Ruth H. Lindeborg (Chicago: u of Chicago p, 1996): 115, 117.

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 453 and for the Goodluck presidency at the time of completing the questionnaires which tcp administered in the thick of Jonathan’s presidency. The Bayelsan respondents to the survey did not overwhelmingly vote ‘Yes’ out of an expectation that the Goodluck presidency would necessarily improve their own and the people’s lot. They did so on the basis of solidarity for the kinsman at the helm. The fascination behind the man’s name, his actual good fortune on the terrain of politics, also constituted a discursive area in which to theorize the continued appeal of the Goodluck personality—an appeal that ensured his landslide victory throughout the South–South and South-East of the country at the recently concluded 2015 presidential election, even though it had been predicted by many that his dismal performance in office would lead to a humiliating electoral defeat. Jonathan eventually lost the 2015 presidential election, but he did not lose anywhere in the South–South; and certainly not in Bayelsa State. Duncan Mighty’s proxy-campaign hit single “Good Luck Jonathan”—which averaged the highest frequency in respondents’ responses to Question 8d— sums up the degree to which most Nigerians of South–South extraction and sympathies took to the idea of the possibility that a ‘minority’ was to be elected . “Good Luck Jonathan” is the twelfth track on the 2010 album Legacy, described as ‘the best Nigerian album of 2010’ by several listen- ers. Indeed, Mighty began the hit by proclaiming: “This is miracle; In fact it’s wonderful …”24 He goes on to assert that Goodluck Jonathan’s emergence meant that Nigeria had attained stability, adding “I am proud to be Niger Delta” through a chorus signifying that a non-majority, and a Niger Deltan for that matter, as President would ensure national equality. He continues after lavishly greeting President Jonathan, his “beautiful wife and all your children” with a call on legislators to enact laws for “equal rights” in how Nigeria is governed. What is sauce for the Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa majority ethnic groups should be sauce for the Ijaw and other minority ethnic groups. In this way, a better Nigeria will emerge wherein the people come together and live together. It is noteworthy that at the time of writing the song, Goodluck Jonathan was at the difficult point of pushing his candidature through the pdp channel, which had the office zoned to the North. It is thus easy to understand Mighty’s negotiations on why the notion of ‘equal rights’ had to supersede any existing zoning arrangement. Mighty does not shy away from highlighting some pertinent sentiments behind having a Niger Deltan as President owing to the resources the region

24 Duncan Mighty, Legacy (: Wene Mighty Records, 2010).

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 454 osiebe possesses. In addition to crude oil, he lists water, rubber, fish, peace, city, and offshore. Severally, he asks “Ogini?,” which is Igbo for ‘what else, what is it?’ In essence, Mighty brags on behalf of the Niger Delta ‘nation’, insisting that the region was not merely a major part of the country’s economic prosperity over the years, but also had it all. Mighty soon exhorts: “I say everybody, demonstrate … We have to celebrate … If you like, make you pop champagne or rosé….” In the chorus following the second verse, Mighty is heard chanting, with deep emotion, “I am so proud” (2ce) before reeling out—in verse three—the names of state Governors, mainly from the Niger Delta, who had announced their backing for President Jonathan for victory at the polls. He begins by mentioning the goodwill message from of Rivers State. He follows with of Delta, Adams Oshiomole of Edo, of Akwa Ibom, of Cross River, of Lagos, and of . Considering the interesting link between the Goodluck Jonathan story and the equation of this possibility with what it means to be Niger Deltan since the Cinderella tale of Jonathan’s emergence on the political scene in Nigeria, it is clear that the issue of ‘identity’ was central to votes cast, just as it was to the questionnaires completed. The Goodluck identity was—and continues to be—a definite rallying point in the Niger Delta, perhaps nowhere more so than in his home state of Bayelsa.

Implications of the Results

[Popular music] may make little difference to the way [people] vote, but votes make little difference to the way politicians behave.25

Pius Adesanmi posits that in political discourse, Nigeria ranks as the world’s largest spectocracy. by which he refers to the scenario wherein the validity and legitimacy of the country’s political process do not inhere in voters’ choices. He argues that, rather than having an electorate, Nigeria is home to a ‘spectocracy’ where those who should constitute the former have no say whatsoever in who contests and wins elections in the country.26 By and large, ethnic and religious politicking is extensively employed in exploiting the sentiments of

25 John Street, Rebel Rock: The Politics of Popular Music (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986): 3. 26 Pius Adesanmi, Still on Spectocracy: The Nigerian Opposition as Simulacrum (2013), http:// saharareporters.com/column/still-spectocracy-nigerian-opposition-simulacrum-pius- adesanmi (accessed 26 January 2017).

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 455 the population for determining those who run for a position on the various party platforms.The ultimate contests—council, gubernatorial, senatorial, and presidential elections—are barely exercises decided by the people, as they play no part in the emergence of the candidates in the first instance. With such spectatorship credentials of an electorate, it is little wonder that the choices before voters at elections in Nigeria are reduced to ‘voting candidates of my ethnic group’, ‘voting candidates of my religious persuasion’, and, as the Bayelsa-Lagos survey has shown, ‘justifying the methods of emergence of my kinsman’. Richard Joseph observes that “state offices are […] appropriated by office- holders, who use them to generate material benefits for themselves and their constituents and kin groups,” and cites the inherent feature of “allocations pat- terned by ethnically-delineated patron-client networks.” He continues:

Babangida and Abacha carried the personalizing of supreme power […] to an extreme level using the control over, and selective distribution of, -derived resources. Yet, under them, and at all levels of the fed- eration, the prebendal use of offices, and the ethno-regional clientelism that sustain it, persisted […] As the once excluded minorities of the oil- producing states of the Nigerian Delta and contiguous areas corral central positions in the federal government, contemporary descriptions of the political economy echo what I wrote three decades ago: “The pervasive normative expectations […] that the struggle for a share of public goods will be conducted and assessed along ethnic and other sectional lines.”27

Joseph proceeds to an appraisal of the essay “Meet the New Boss: Same as the Old Boss” by Nicolas van de Walle,28 wherein the author demonstrates how a leader forges alliances among the political elite by the use of “prebendally” acquired offices for “the mobilizing of ethnic constituencies” and how ethno- clientelistic systems encouraged citizens “to vote for members of their own ethnic group.”

27 Richard Joseph, Prebendalism and Dysfunctionality in Nigeria (2013), http://africaplus .wordpress.com/2013/07/26/prebendalism-and-dysfunctionality-in-nigeria/ (accessed 15 July 2016). 28 Nicolas van de Walle, “Meet the New Boss: Same as the Old Boss: The Evolution of Political Clientism in Africa,” in Patrons, Clients and Politics: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition, ed. Herbert Kitschelt & Steven I. Wilkinson (Cambridge: Cam- bridge up, 2007): 50–67.

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 456 osiebe

While the accuracy of the foregoing submissions is not in doubt, it is neces- sary to re-examine the appropriation of ‘ethnicity’ within prebendal discourses. Indeed, the long years of neglect and marginalization of the Niger Delta, under- standably, could weigh on the nature of desperation for the nation’s top job by people from the region. The unprecedented approach of the Jonathan presi- dential campaign illustrates this. However, a deeper and proper grasp of the ethnic/kin dynamic as far as material distribution goes is essential. Beyond perspectives nurtured by personal observation, various interviewees29 would differ markedly from the overstated role of ethnicity in Joseph’s prebendal texts. Not only is the idea that an ethnic/religious divide obtains in Nigeria (an impression actively sold by the Nigerian elite) false, the impression equally blurs the observation of the existence of a well-oiled elite–masses class divide. The long years of psychological battering suffered by the people of the Niger Delta may have got most of them carried away by the possibility of a Presi- dent from their region, such that a illusory vision of personal and communal Eldorado has materialized. The truth, however, is that such has never been the tendency in Nigeria. Tales abound about the many Presidents from the north who, in spite of their conspicuous personal wealth, retire to towns and cities where poverty is severe. Olusegun Obasanjo, the former President from the southwest, is constantly scolded for not managing to construct the road leading to his retirement home. A similar narrative obtains with lesser public-office holders across the nation. Where, then, resides the ethno-jingoism of public office as this is commonly depicted? It certainly comes nowhere close to what obtains among members of the elite class. Indeed, cronies of public-office holders usually have a lot of material spin-offs to point to, including, of course, support in attaining public office themselves. It is a statistical fact that the gap between the rich and the poor has continually widened in post-independence Nigeria. If the prebendal nature of Nigeria’s leaders over this period were as ethnically driven as is claimed, perhaps there might have been at least one ethnic group that was tangibly better off than others:

I don’t want a President from my village. I want a President who will develop my village […]. A president from my village who has no agenda

29 Including the aforementioned, who remarked that “the average man from northern Nige- ria has had no concrete material benefit to show for the period his kinsmen have been in charge of governance in Nigeria at the central level.”

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 457

for development will cripple all of us here and that is what has happened to the North—Labaran Maku, Nigeria’s erstwhile Information Minister.30

Whereas the excerpt above bears the marks of campaign rhetoric, it nonethe- less deconstructs the ethnic inclinations of prebendal literature in a subtle yet profound manner. Were the pro-ethnicity of Nigerian leaders as depicted in writings on prebendalism anything to go by, then surely commentaries such as these would be written off and might have faded into oblivion by now. However, such positions persist, particularly among a critical bloc, and continue to catch on owing to the prevalence of class-prebendalism in a much-maligned ethnic sector. The intention here is not to offer solutions to the problem of prebendal- ism, nor is it to offer palliatives to problems in Nigeria’s leadership. Nonetheless,

[Ministers] are appointed by the president, but we are described as, not ‘ministers of the president’, we are described as ‘ministers of the Fed- eral Republic’ and ‘members of the Federal Executive Council’. […] The president has no choice […] on the issue of how many ministers he will appoint, because the constitution makes it mandatory that there must be at least one minister from a state. […] The president may like you, and think you should be his […] minister, but in appointing you he recognizes the fact that you are from a [particular] state—Ojo Madwekwe, Nigeria’s High Commissioner to Canada, speaking in 2010 as Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.31

The foregoing barely critiques any positions on ethnic-prebendalism, but it at least draws attention to the fact that, in the Nigerian context, if a president were of a prebendal disposition, he is likely to fulfil that ‘obligation’ by favouring his ‘class kin’ across ethnic groups from each state. What obtains in the constitu- tion regarding executive appointments in government continue to trickle down into the states and local governments. Indeed, at gubernatorial elections, there is hardly a party candidature in which both aspirants for governor and deputy governor hail from one local government area of the state. And such considera- tions are explored in appointing state government commissioners as well. The

30 The Nigerian Voice, North Has Lost Strong Leadership Tradition—Minister (2010), http:// www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/40357/1/north-has-lost-strong-leadership-tradition- ministe.html (accessed 2 August 2016). 31 Sahara Reporters, Transcription of Maduekwe Interview (2010), http://saharareporters .com/2010/01/23/transcription-maduekwe-interview (accessed 2 August 2016).

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 458 osiebe well-known formula of the ‘quota system’ has been heavily criticized for placing emphasis on regional representation as against ability. Drawing on these, there is a need to revisit prebendal literature’s own emphasis on ‘ethnic-’ and propose an analysis that is vigilant on the ‘class’ front. In this sense, it is worth reflecting on the transformation of Nigeria’s spectocrate into a genuine electorate such that class-dominated politics is undone from beneath. A focus group of postgraduate researchers of Bayelsan origin reached a consensus on a number of themes on the issue, including the following:

– Colonial legacy: The colonialists set the notion of ethnic-prebendalism in place in Nigeria by favouring the North on the matter of the country’s self-governance. This in turn became a culture which other ethnic groups inculcated. As such, Nigeria is a country whose citizens are predominantly those of their ethnic groups first before they are citizens of Nigeria. – Individualization of the commonweal: Prebendalism involves a complex dy- namic wherein the system builds powerful individuals rather than strong institutions. In this way of thinking, class-prebendalism occurs in order to maintain a hold on the various ethnic groups, who kowtow en masse to the empowered individuals32 among their kin. This is an instrument for maintaining loyalty and order. – The way it is: It would appear that the average Nigerian enjoys this approach of empowering certain select individuals rather than attempting to build institutions. The catch here is two-pronged: (i) there is a likelihood of direct personal benefit for the average citizen if s/he is related/affiliated to an ‘empowered individual’; (ii) an attempt (or claim) to build institutions has lost any semblance of credibility on the Nigerian scene, such that ultra- cynicism reigns on that score. Indeed, these attempts or claims are deemed tools of marginalization employed by other ‘empowered individuals’ who are not prepared offer one their patronage—depending on which side one is on.

It is true that sentiments over voting for candidates from one’s own ethnic group are strong in Nigeria—as with many other multi-ethnic societies where the presidential system of governance obtains. Prebendal literature as present- ly constituted arguably permits such sentiments. Indeed, it would be wrong to

32 It is noteworthy that the contracting of select popular musicians across various ethnic groups by the Jonathan Campaign Organization equates nicely with this notion: i.e. the artists contracted represent ‘empowered individuals’ at the expense of the commonweal.

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 459 assert that each of the 504,811 people—99.83% of the total votes cast—who voted for Goodluck Jonathan in Bayelsa (a state of several ethnic groups) did so out of a conviction that he would perform well in office. Similarly, it would be wrong to state that each of these voters did so owing to sentiments having to do with being somehow ethnically or regionally affiliated to Jonathan. Therein— beyond the music—lies a morass which future research on political/electoral culture may profitably wade into.

Conclusion

This paper has attempted to fill some gaps in research into audiences in a par- ticular part of Africa. It has provided a contextualization for the circumstances surrounding the candidature of Goodluck Jonathan for the 2011 presidential election in Nigeria, and has commended the polling organization for its motive in engaging with the electorate in Bayelsa and Lagos States. The paper drew on relevant interviewees, particularly the Director of Research and Strategy for the 2011 Goodluck Presidential Campaign Organization. More importantly, the paper examined the results of the survey, which showed an overwhelm- ing majority—based on the sample—of the Bayelsan electorate as motivated to vote by music, with a thin equivalent for the Lagos electorate. The paper conceptualized the results as the machinations of identity and as solidarity for the Bayelsan electorate’s kinsman. There was, in fact, musical evidence to show that, for the average Bayelsan voter, what mattered most at the election and subsequently was the reality of a Bayelsan as President. The Lagos voters showed indifference, at best, towards the 2011 presidential election, while the outcome of the 2015 presidential election showed the Lagosian electorate as somewhat unsentimental; although that may only be proven, were a study to be carried out with an indigenous candidate from Lagos State.

Works Cited

Adesanmi, Pius. Still on Spectocracy: The Nigerian Opposition as Simulacrum (2013), http://saharareporters.com/column/still-spectocracy-nigerian-opposition- simulacrum-pius-adesanmi (accessed 26 January 2017). Adesanmi, Pius. 2015: I Endorse You, Spectocrat! (2013), http://saharareporters.com/ column/2015-i-endorse-you-spectocrat-pius-adesanmi (accessed 26 January 2017). African Elections Database. Elections in Nigeria (2012), http://africanelections.tripod .com/ng.html#1999_Presidential_Election (accessed 25 November 2016).

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 460 osiebe

Barber, Karin. “Preliminary Notes on Audiences in Africa,” Africa 67.3 (1997): 347– 362. Bayelsa State. Bayelsa State: Glory of All Lands (2014), http://bayelsa.gov.ng/portal (accessed through 2014–2017). Campaign Professionals. tcp Survey: Questionnaire and Results (2012), http://thecampaignprofessionals.com (accessed through 2016). Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, vol. 1 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002). Falola, Toyin, & Matthew Heaton. A History of Nigeria (Cambridge: Cambridge up, 2008). Fiske, John. “The Commodities of Culture,” inTheConsumerSocietyReader, ed. Maurice Lee (Malden ma: Blackwell, 2000): 282–287. Gunner, Liz. “Africa and orality,” in The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature, ed. F. Abiola Irele & Simon Gikandi (Cambridge: Cambridge up, 2000): 1–18. Gunner, Liz. “Jacob Zuma, the social body and the unruly power of song,”African Affairs 108/430 (2008): 27–48. Hall, Stuart. “Minimal Selves,” in Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader, ed. Houston A. Baker, Jr., Manthia Diawara & Ruth H. Lindeborg (Chicago: u of Chicago p, 1996): 114–119. Harrop, Martin. “Voters,” in The Media in British Politics, ed. Jean Seaton & Ben Pimlott (Aldershot & Brookfield vt: Gower/Avebury, 1987): 45–63. James, Deborah. “‘Music of origin’: class, social category and the performers and audi- ence of kiba, a South African migrant genre,” Africa 67.3 (1997): 454–475. Joseph, Richard. Democracy and Prebendal Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge up, 1987). Joseph, Richard. Prebendalism and Dysfunctionality in Nigeria (2013), http://africaplus .wordpress.com/2013/07/26/prebendalism-and-dysfunctionality-in-nigeria/ (accessed 15 July 2016). Lagos State. Lagos State: Centre of Excellence (2014), http://www.lagosstate.gov.ng/ (accessed through 2012–2014). Negus, Keith. Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity, 1996). Nigeria Elections Coalition. Nigerian Presidential Elections—2011 (final) (2014), http:// nigeriaelections.org/presidential.php (accessed 11 December 2016). Nigerian Voice. North Has Lost Strong Leadership Tradition—Minister (2010), http:// www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/40357/1/north-has-lost-strong-leadership- tradition-ministe.html (accessed 2 August 2016). Omeri, Mike. “Biography of Mike Omeri” (2011), http://mike-omeri.blogspot.co.uk/ (accessed 21 June 2016). Pongweni, Alec J.C. “The Chimurenga Songs of the Zimbabwean War of Liberation,” in

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 461

Readings in African Popular Culture, ed. Karin Barber (Bloomington: International African Institute/Indiana up, 1997): 63–72. Sahara Reporters. Transcription of Maduekwe Interview (2010), http://saharareporters .com/2010/01/23/transcription-maduekwe-interview (accessed 2 August 2016). Schumann, Anne. “Songs of a New Era: Popular Music and Political Expression in the Ivorian Crisis,” African Affairs 112/448 (2013): 440–459. Shepler, Susan. “Youth Music and Politics in Post-War Sierra Leone,” Journal of Modern African Studies 48.4 (2010): 627–642. Street, John. “The Politics of Popular Culture,” in The Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology, ed. Kate Nash & Alan Scott (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004): 302–311. Street, John. Rebel Rock: The Politics of Popular Music (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). van de Walle, Nicolas. “Meet the New Boss: Same as the Old Boss: The Evolution of Political Clientism in Africa,” in Patrons, Clients and Politics: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition, ed. Herbert Kitschelt & Steven I. Wilkinson (Cambridge: Cambridge up, 2007): 50–67.

Interview Mike Omeri, National Orientation Agency Director General, Abuja, 7 July 2014.

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 462 osiebe

Appendix: Popular Music and Elections in Nigeria

This Questionnaire will take you approximately 10 minutes to complete. It is part of a survey conceived and administered by The Campaign Professionals, aimed at determining the influence of popular music and musicians on the outcome of 2011 Presidential Elections in Nigeria. Please state how much you think music—either sung at rallies or recorded specifically for campaigns and aired on television, radio or over the internet— affected your choice at the election. Responses will be used for establishing baseline data on Nigeria’s nascent electoral culture only. Responses are strictly confidential. Please respond freely according to your thoughts on the subject.

Please place a tick [√] as appropriate:

Section a

1. Age of Respondent: 18–25 [ ] 26–40 [ ] 40–60 [ ] 61 and above [ ] 2. Sex of Respondent: Male [ ] Female [ ] 3. Highest Education Level: Primary School [ ] Secondary School [ ] Bach- elor’s Degree [ ] Postgraduate Degree [ ] Other Qualifications [ ] Please Specify ______4. Are you a registered voter: Yes [ ] or No [ ] 5. Did you vote in the 2011 presidential election: Yes [ ] or No [ ]

Section b (The following questions 6–8 relate to the 2011 general elections).

6. In the run-up to the 2011 presidential election, did you watch or attend any of the campaign rallies? Yes [ ] No [ ] 7. Which of these campaign rallies did you watch or attend during the period? i. The Goodluck Jonathan declaration ceremony held at the Eagles Square, Abuja: Yes [ ] No [ ] ii. The Goodluck/Sambo ‘Youth for Transformation Rally’ held at the Eagles Square, Abuja: Yes [ ] No [ ] iii. The Goodluck Jonathan presidential bid concert held at the muson centre, Lagos: Yes [ ] No [ ] 8. Please indicate as appropriate: I watched or listened to the electoral campaign performances of these musicians and/ or musical group in the course of the 2011 election campaigns:

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 463

a. D’banj: Yes [ ] No [ ] b. Onyeka Onwenu: Yes [ ] No [ ] c. Nollywood singers: Yes [ ] No [ ] d. Please list other(s) ______9. Please tick a √ in the relevant box:

Yes No

a. Did you choose your candidate on account of the [][] information from the source in (6), (7) and (8) above?

b. Do you think that your political opinions are shaped by [][] the campaign rallies you attended or watched?

c. Do you think that your opinion about party [][] programmes/ideologies or lack of it was shaped by campaign rallies?

d. Do you think that your opinion about quality of [][] representation (credible representative) might have been shaped by the campaign rallies?

e. Would you say an issue of significant interest to you was [][] addressed by any musician at the campaign rally and hence influenced your choice of candidate?

Your time and thoughts are well appreciated.

The Results

The design enabled an investigation of the role of the three selected electoral campaign songs in mounting opinion and voter behaviour during the 2011 pres- idential election. The choice of the design was informed by the nature of the Questionnaire’s content and the issue being investigated. The population for the survey comprised registered persons of voting age in selected communities within various local government areas of Bayelsa and Lagos states, specifically those who were able to vote at the 2011 presidential election.The locations sam- pled were private and public establishments—specific addresses cannot be

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 464 osiebe disclosed due to issues of ethics and confidentiality—in both states. By apply- ing a simple random technique, the research sampled a total of 638 people from these areas. The respondents were made up of male and female young and old adults. Of the 638 questionnaires administered, tcp recovered a total of 402 completed questionnaires. The figure of 402 eliminates respondents who did not register to vote and those who registered but could not vote. A breakdown of the distribution of the voter-respondents across gender in the two states assessed follows: table i Distribution of respondents who voted—location and gender

States Total number Male (215) Female (187) of respondents (402)

Bayelsa 188 114 74

Lagos 214 101 113

Bayelsa State table b1 Distribution of voting respondents who listened to campaign songs and attended/watched rallies (Bayelsa)

Campaign songs/rallies Yes No % Yes % No

The Declaration Ceremony, Abuja 176 12 93.6 6.4

The ‘Youth for Transformation Rally’, Abuja 135 53 71.8 28.2

Presidential Bid Concert, Lagos 139 49 73.9 26.1

D’banj electoral performance 169 19 89.9 10.1

Onyeka Onwenu electoral performance 144 44 76.6 23.4

When Nollywood Sang 180 8 95.7 4.3

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access electoral music reception 465 table b2 The influence of campaign music/rallies on voting choices (Bayelsa)

Relevant items Responses (Question 9a–e of the study questionnaire) Yes No % Yes

Did you choose your candidate on account of the 162 26 86.2 information from the source in (7) and (8) above?

Do you think that your political opinions are shaped by the 128 60 68.1 campaign rallies you attended or watched?

Do you think that your opinion about party programmes/ 136 52 72.3 ideologies or lack of it was shaped by campaign rallies?

Do you think that your opinion about quality of 93 95 49.5 representation (credible representative) might have been shaped by the campaign rallies?

Would you say an issue of significant interest to you was 163 25 86.7 addressed by any musician at the campaign rally and hence influenced your choice of candidate?

Lagos State table l1 Distribution of voting respondents who listened to campaign songs and attended/watched rallies (Lagos)

Campaign songs/rallies Yes No % Yes % No

The Declaration Ceremony, Abuja 186 28 86.9 13.1

The ‘Youth for Transformation Rally’, Abuja 112 102 52.3 47.7

Presidential Bid Concert, Lagos 140 74 65.4 34.6

D’banj electoral performance 189 25 88.3 11.7

Matatu 49 (2017) 439–466 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:09:30PM via free access 466 osiebe

Campaign songs/rallies Yes No % Yes % No

Onyeka Onwenu electoral performance 157 57 73.4 26.6

When Nollywood Sang 163 51 76.2 23.8

table l2 The influence of campaign music/rallies on voting choices (Lagos)

Relevant items Responses (Question 9 a–e of the study questionnaire) Yes No % Yes

Did you choose your candidate on account of the 65 149 30.4 information from the source in (7) and (8) above?

Do you think that your political opinions are shaped by the 44 170 20.6 campaign rallies you attended or watched?

Do you think that your opinion about party programmes/ 62 152 29.0 ideologies or lack of it was shaped by campaign rallies?

Do you think that your opinion about quality of 29 185 13.6 representation (credible representative) might have been shaped by the campaign rallies?

Would you say an issue of significant interest to you was 35 179 16.4 addressed by any musician at the campaign rally and hence influenced your choice of candidate?

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2017) 439–466 08:09:30PM via free access