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<p>By Isah Nasidi, PhD</p>
<p>One of my beloved courses during our undergraduate programme in mass communication was political communication which we stylishly called polcom. Prof. Umar Pate, an erudite media and society scholar, taught us the course. I still refer back to the book he gave us to review, Introduction to Political Communication by McNair. An intriguing thing about polcom is that a person well grounded in polcom literature, especially propaganda and rhetoric, lessens the tendency to fall victim to emotional manipulation and deceptive tricks of not only politicians but his wife. It also empowers citizens to sort gold from the gravel. As an information and media literacy advocate, I always like to share the little I know about this subject to promote constructive political discourse and informed decisions.</p><div class="flsZ4BOb" style="clear:both;float:left;width:100%;margin:0 0 20px 0;"><script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>

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<p>On January 21, 2025, Aliyu Samba, a Facebook influencer and an aide to Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin, posted a four paragraphs criticizing Kwankwasiyya followers for using rhetorical redirection, propaganda and giving too many excuses about what he termed “incompetence” of their governor, Engr. Abba Kabir Yusuf. It is a known fact that Kwankwasiyya followers have a formidable social media team that does not spare any criticism without response. They responded to Samba&#8217;s post in a responsible and attack dogging manner. Seeing the rains of negative personal comments and name-callings from Kwankwasiyya followers for his opinion, Samba posted again lamenting the intolerance of Kwankwasiyya followers and went ahead to criticise Kano State governors in detail. This time, Samba got a responsible comment from Dr Aliyu Isah Aliyu, the Director General Kano State Bureau of Statistics and very active social media promoter of the Kwankwasiyya. I picked interest in their debate because of the decorum and wisdom they displayed in their responses. It is worth emulation from young facebookers and political data boys.</p>
<p>My focus here is not about judging the two debaters, nor discussing the performance or underperformance of the Kano State Governor, Engr. Abba Kabir Yusuf. Rather, I explored and discussed a few propaganda techniques and other rhetorical tactics, knowingly and unknowingly employed by the debaters to convey their messages. This will support our critical examination of the latent meaning and intent hidden in political discourse. Do not panic, I will not be academic.</p>
<p>To start with, a critical reading of propaganda literature shows how propagandistic the concept is. For instance the Western world uses their “polished propaganda” to accuse Russia or Al Qaeda of using propaganda. A common notion about propaganda is lies, deception, and half-truth. However, the easiest way to understand propaganda is by using logic to deduce the latent meaning or intent of the communicator not the veracity of the content because a true statement can be propagandistic. Some common propaganda techniques include 1. Name-calling 2. Glittering generalities 3. Transfer 4. Plain folk 5. Card stacking 6. Bandwagon and 7. Testimonial.</p>
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<p>Interestingly, Samba accused Kwankwasiyya of using propaganda. However, he also used some propaganda techniques, such as name calling, emotional appeal and glittering generalities. First, the name-calling technique appeals to the emotion of hate and rejection, and links a person or idea with a negative symbol or identity. Calling Kwankwasiyya “a cult of blind followers” is linking them to a negative identity, some may argue that Kwankwasiyya do call themselves with similar names. Another propaganda technique in Samba&#8217;s post is card sticking, “I see no sign of any genuine effort to fix them (problems)” which gives only one-sided favourable information and disregards the government efforts. Samba painted his opinion as “truth” using glittering generalities propaganda technique.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Dr. Aliyu employed a bandwagon technique using #abbaisworking hashtag to portray a general consensus of Kano people about their government efforts to fix Kano&#8217;s problems. Similarly, the way Dr Aliyu capitalised on the completed and ongoing projects of the Kwankwasiyya administration while overlooking the share of the problem on ground is a card stacking technique as explained above. Using terms like “people centred policy” “integrity,” and “genuine efforts” by Dr Aliyu to exonerate the Kwankwasiyya government without realistic and measurable indicators is a glittering generalities propaganda.</p>
<p>Moreover, the debaters leveraged on debate tactics and some are worth mentioning here. Ad hominem means responding to co-debater personality or motive. Dr. Aliyu charged Samba of bias, being an aide of Barau Jibrin, a leading opposition in Kano politics, which is not the subject of discussion. He went ahead to threaten Samba with a counter campaign against his boss #Barauyazaga, an excellent strategy to silence Samba. Samba also attacked the Kwankwasiyya group by tagging them as intolerant and cult-like movements.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I observed that Dr Aliyu tactically played what is called strategic omission or question dodging on the local government autonomy raised by Samba, knowing that the government is yet to or cannot fulfil the promise. Also, Samba dodge discussing issues raised against his boss, perhaps, to avoid derailing from the topic of discussion. Lastly, is whataboutism, a rhetorical tactic of redirecting blame. Dr. Aliyu wrote “Why did your boss not do anything about the dams in Kano north?”.</p>
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<p>Realistically, we cannot do away with propaganda in political discussion,but we can use it wisely. All politicians use propaganda, deliberately or not, but use it excessively and incautiously. It is good to know that propaganda, precisely black propaganda, which is absolute lies and deception, is unethical and dangerous to our democracy as it erodes trust between the political class and citizens. That&#8217;s why in the Nigerian context, the name politician is synonymous with a liar. That is why people don&#8217;t give the necessary support to government policies. A sustainable solution to this, from the citizens perspective, is media and information literacy.</p>
<p>Is it interesting? Do you pick interest in reading polcom lit? Am I correct in stating that, whether we realize it or not, we are all propagandists? But, who is more propagandistic between the two Aliyu&#8217;s? Nima dai, I don&#8217;t know the answers, sai dai na ce Wallahu Taala alam.</p>
<p>Isah Nasidi, PhD, is lecturer at Baze University, Abuja and author of Political Communication in the Post Truth Era: Concept, Laws and Strategies and siyasa ba da gaba ba. isanyaya@gmail.com</p>
<p>This post was copied from Dr Isah Nasidi&#8217;s Facebook Page</p>
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