Social Media And Local Politics, Why Many Politicians Fail in 21st Century|Yomi Ojo

Social Media and Local Politics, Why Many Politicians Fail in 21st Century!

Politics defines as the the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially as social media platforms are increasingly used for political news and information.

In the past, we believed politics is local, the relationship in your community will decide how far a politician can go, this writer still believe up till today that the politics is very local, and a serious politician must take hold of his locality. Meanwhile, we still have majority of present politicians that fail to understand that politics have gone beyond being popular only in their communities.

The leadership of the PDP in the state queried the performance of the Senator representing Oyo South Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator Kola Balogun and this caused him his place in the party.

Is it true that Senator Kola  Balogun didn't perform or maybe he failed to blow his trumpet? Sure, something is missing in the team of the Senator. I listened to a radio program last weekend when one of the senator's closest aides list numerous projects carried out by the Senator and how he empowered politicians in his domain and the state.

Is it that the two other senators in the state perform better than Senator Kola Balogun or they take advantage of the media platforms especially the social media to propagate their achievements to people and former PDP senator failed to do?

Politics is more global than local in the century we find ourselves, no one will blow your trumpet if you fail to blow it.

In the media world, we call politician or a product that fail to take advantage of media or marketing drives as a "ghost" . This means that no one is aware of the product or the product is having a limited life cycle.

Research has confirmed it that over 140 Nigerians and about 2.8 million in Oyo State visits social media platform everyday especially Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Any politician that'll stand a test of time in modern politics must be ready to invest in media and carry the people along with his or her activities inside and outside the politics. 

2015 elections should be a case study of how powerful media platforms especially social media can help parties winning elections, while PDP saw social media as distraction, APC has taken over  and sold their candidate and discredited PDP and her programs on the same platforms PDP called distraction. 

Majority of political sentiment, propaganda  starts from social media and spread down to the grassroots, a serious politician must take note of ways of channeling his/her information and activities of office.The use of social media has changed the way in which political groups and politicians conduct election campaigns, it keep in touch with constituents, and forge alliances with other groups or individuals

Finally, Social media is as good as playing local politics, the two can go together and not abandoned one for the other, Goodluck Jonathan and Senator Kola Balogun are telling their stories in hard ways now and we must all learn from their mistakes and start taken issues on social media and media publicity very serious.  

Otunba Yomi Ojo.

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