ABSTRACT
The
research is carried out on the thrust to examine the influence of SMS in political
advertising (messages) on voting pattern of electorates in the 2015
Governorship election in Abia State. Short Message Service otherwise known as
SMS play a crucial role in political mobilization, political awareness and in
influencing the voting behaviour of electorate as it was tested during the 2014
governorship election in both Ekiti and Osun State that is why it was also used
in Abia State gubernatorial election. Survey research method was adopted
coupled with 300 copies of questionnaire that were administered to the
electorate to find out whether they
receive any sms that associate with politics during 2015 gubernatorial
elections in Abia State and the how it influenced them. Out of 300 copies that
were administered, 289 copies were returned upon which analysis was based. Frequency
and simple percentage method coupled with table were used in analyzing the
data. It is recommended that political parties, politicians, INEC and other
stakeholders like National Orientation Agency etc should keep in touch with
voters individually by sending SMS to them either to canvas for vote or to
educate them on political conduct and in an attempt to get text messages across to the electorate,
they can get the data of this demographic group from the Nigerian
Communications Commission (NCC) data base with the new SIM registration
phenomenon, this should not be a difficult task.