Interrogating the Place of Political Advertising for National Development: Nigeria’s Perspective Since 1999

Abstract

This paper interrogates political advertising for national development since the return of Nigeria to democratic governance after many years of military rule in 1999. There exist many political parties in Nigeria almost all having the same aim that of improving the livelihoods of Nigerians through good policies on education, health, industrialization, creation of employment the teeming youths, improvement of infrastructural facilities in the area of energy, roads and making food available and affordable for Nigerians among other things. There is an indication of widespread political advertisement on the above indices, but there is no nexus for national development. National development is a compass and an integration of opportunities on education, skills of its citizens, the opportunities available to them, and the infrastructure connecting them with one another. This, therefore, creates avenue for the citizens to maximize these skills for development. In this way, the education is underfunded, health facilities are in coma, there is still very high unemployment rate, energy is epileptic, the roads deplorable, etc., there is very high growth of GDP but has not translated to the wellbeing of the citizens. There is a disconnect between government programmes and the people. There is a wide gap between the rich political class and the masses. Life generally is difficult and unbearable to the citizens. The paper adopts historical survey and analytical approaches as its methodology.