1 Introduction

The conceptualization of religion as a discrete or separate aspect of social life not having anything to do with political behaviour is increasingly destabilised by contemporary practices in which metaphysical and spiritual beliefs aggressively and unapologetically insert themselves into the conception and practice of politics. The resurgence of religion is transforming the practice of politics in the Middle East, in Asia, North America and Latin America. In post-colonial Africa, religion and ethnicity have never been separated from political participation and contestations. While religious beliefs and practices have traditionally played specific roles in the history of communities which later became Nigeria, never before in the history of post-colonial Nigeria has religion played as pivotal and organising a role as it does in the current dispensation (1999-present). Beginning in 1999 when Olusegun Obasanjo was freed from prison to contest for the office of the president and was consequently framed in the image of a political “messiah”, subsequent political actors have consistently presented themselves as quasi-divine figures on a sacred mission to redeem Nigeria’s citizens from decades of misrule. Nowhere was this image of political redeemer more articulate than during the 2011 general elections and especially the presidential campaign of Goodluck E. Jonathan, the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

On December 17, 2010, the sitting president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, attended the Holy Ghost Congress, an annual religious service organised by the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). In the course of the event, Jonathan knelt down on both knees before the General Overseer of the RCCG, Enoch Adejare Adeboye, for prayers and divine endorsement. Adeboye prayed for him, blessed him and endorsed him for the office of president in the coming presidential election. The next day the photographs of a kneeling president were flashed on front pages of national newspapers as well as on many online news sites and blogs. Adeboye is unarguably Nigeria’s most popular Pentecostal leader, who had boasted in the past that anyone who wished to be president of Nigeria would need to consult him. In his capacity as “God’s oracle”, and in the nature of the church he superintends, one of the largest Pentecostal churches, or rather, Pentecostal empires in Nigeria, Adeboye attracts politicians and businesspersons to the church’s expansive camp (termed the Redemption Camp) which has become a site frequented by serving state governors, presidents, senators and other national politicians. The event and image of a kneeling president ignited heated debates locally, as well as online, about a sitting president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces kneeling before a private citizen who claims to exercise spiritual and temporal powers supplicating for divine intervention in the affairs of the most important and powerful citizen of the country. A kneeling president before another citizen has no precedence in the history of Nigeria. The image of a kneeling Jonathan before an establishment pastor graphically captures the place of religion in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.

This paper describes the role religion was made to play in the political campaigns of 2010–11.There are a number of perspectives on the integration of religion and politics in Nigeria. In the past, scholars have examined the role of independent churches as structures of resistance to colonial imperialism and its economic superstructure of capitalism (Peel 1968). Others have analysed the contribution of religious groups to the formation and structure of civil society and democratic culture (Obadare 2007; Ranger 2008); moreover, the character of indigenous religious beliefs and their place in political behaviour has dominated other forms of inquiry (Ellis/Ter Haar 2004). The present inquiry focuses on the examination of religious ideas, images and motifs in political marketing during the 2011 general electoral campaign in Nigeria. Special attention is given to political posters and billboards, partly because these are visual media and partly because they have more permanence than radio and television advertisements, which are transient or may require some special recording devices to capture and retain. Audry Gadzekpo (2011, p. 105) has recently lamented that “not enough attention has been paid to visual media forms such as posters” and billboards in Africa even in the face of the continent’s prolific production of these materials. Billboards and posters constitute important structures of information; their sheer ubiquity in many African cities recommends them for scholarly attention. Posters and billboards are central to political advertising in Nigeria; they are rhetorical strategies for the management of (mis/dis)information, propaganda, education, publicity, mobilisation and value dissemination. Because visual materials are powerful and the visuality of posters and billboards is remarkable in constructing public awareness or consciousness particularly in cities, they deserve critical study, an aim this essay aspires to contribute to. A critical examination of the use of religious motifs and imageries in political advertising blurs the boundaries between the political sphere, the media marketplace and the religious field, illustrating how one sphere of social life overlaps and engages with another. The interaction between these distinct but overlapping fields maps out new ways in which political practice becomes a purveyor for religious transformation. ²³

2 Ambiguity of Religion in Nigerian Politics

The image of a serving president on his knees reproduced in national dailies as well as on several diaspora Internet sites was the highpoint of the political campaigns for the general elections of April 2011. It was the quintessential political advertisement of the period, which was designed, perhaps, to sell the president as a humble and “virtuous” candidate for governing the country. Utilising the platform of a specific religious institution (a Pentecostal church in the case of Goodluck Jonathan) in a multi-religious society such as Nigeria conveyed a plethora of – sometimes contradictory – messages to different segments of the Nigerian population. In a society in which each religious group is suspicious of, and antagonistic towards, the other (Campbell 2011, p. 43), the use of religion as an advertising platform appeals to some sections while at the same time alienating others. More importantly, it generates a paradox: how does a candidate present himself as chosen by the Christian God while aspiring to head a secular federal government at the centre? Religious institutions primarily produce, organise and disseminate religion; they are “[…] neither designed nor intended to mobilize political action” (Wald/Silverman/Friday 2005, p. 121). However, starting from the 1970s onward, the reinsertion of religion into political discourse and practice in many societies has become a common experience (Hanciles 2008; Micklethwait/Wooldridge 2009). In the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, there has been an increase in the use of religion in political mobilisation in many societies across the world; this is particularly the case in electoral politics where political communication is refined and targeted at a mass audience. Political advertising is a subset of political communication designed to create a public atmosphere predisposed to supporting government generally, or its policies, personalities or institutions. Campaign advertising may be directed at a mass audience whose endorsement of the views expressed may be critical to government or party policy success. Political advertisements are aimed at changing public perception of political actors, actions or personalities, whether or not they are in office. Politics have this-worldly objectives: the distribution of state resources of power and the mobilisation and organisation of legitimacy. When otherworldly discourses and motifs are mobilised in order to secure this-worldly political goals, the aim is to build trust that transcends the empirically verifiable world of things, people and facts.

In Nigeria, religion has consistently played a significant and public role in the history and formative stages of nation building. The role of religion in politics has increased in recent decades as the nation-state becomes increasingly weak, experiencing an obvious inability to discharge its constitutional obligations to its citizens. As politicians are unable to articulate lasting political ideologies, religion has come to play the role of an organising platform for political action and self-representation. In pre-colonial times, among the different societies that later became Nigeria, the source of political authority rested not with the people, but with the gods and ancestors; political power issued from the sacred realm where the ruler doubled as a ritual representative of his people. This was the case not only in the forest kingdoms of Benin and Oyo but also with the emirates of pre-colonial northern Nigeria, where, after the Othman dan Fodio Jihad of 1804–1810, the area became thoroughly Islamised, with religious and political authority fused in one (quasi) sacred person. In colonial Nigeria, religion was a strong instrument of secular governance, particularly in Lord Fredrick Lugard’s “Indirect Rule” system in northern Nigeria. In this system, political power and authority were vested on Muslim leaders in the emirates as representatives of the colonial administration. State Islam was an amorphous institution started by the colonial authority. Islam in northern Nigeria from 1900 to the 1940s soon became a quasi-established religion, protected by the colonial powers from criticism and competition. Islam, in the calculation of Lord Lugard ([1922] 1965, p. 193f.) was a legitimatising institution for the exercise of political authority (Afolayan 2009, p. 37–66). Colonial administrations promoted and benefited from Islam and Christianity in different ways and to different extents (Kenny 2010, p. 303). During this period, religion was a ready handmaid of political policies and expediency; it was not supposed to radically bring to birth a “new” Nigeria. This was the task of politicians or the founding fathers of the nation.

Attempts at modernisation and nation-building after independence from Britain witnessed an inevitable setback when civil war broke out in 1967 (for a recent articulation of the circumstances surrounding the Nigerian-Biafran conflict, see Achebe 2012). Restoration of civilian rule has been frequently punctuated by coup d’états and the imposition of military dictatorships. In order to secure popular legitimacy, military usurpers of political power consistently played the religious card. The surreptitious enrolment of Nigeria as a full member of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) at the Sixteenth Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers on 9 January 1986 in Fez, Morocco, during the regime of Ibrahim Babangida is a clear exemplar. Civilian regimes were thought to be capable of restoring power to the electoral system, such that public office-seekers would mobilise public support based on their individual ability and qualification to render services or carry out the required responsibility, rather than their beliefs or relationship with a religious community or deity. Rapid impoverishment of a large section of the population and the accelerated and steady weakening of political and state institutions have expanded the influence of religion as the centre of spiritual and secular conduct. Political advertisement materials produced and distributed during this period illustrate that the religious identity of political contestants and their supposed relationship to God are their primary selling point. A distinctive feature of political practice after May 1999, when the military handed power over to a(n) (s)elected civilian government after 16 years of military dictatorship, has been the expansion and institutionalisation of never before imagined religious structures as instruments for the consolidation and circulation of political power.²⁴ While Nigeria claims to be a secular democracy – even though the word “secular” does not appear in the constitution – there is no separation between religion and politics in practice; each translates into, sustains and reinforces the other.

The preamble of the Nigerian Constitution (1999) clearly declares the country “as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God […]”²⁵, while Section 10 specifies that the government shall not adopt any religion as “state religion” and that citizens are free to belong to, or form associations based on, religious beliefs, and publicly exercise their rights and freedoms such as switching faiths. This provision gives the impression – frequently cited and supported by Christians, while vehemently contested and rejected by Muslims – that Nigeria is a secular state (Kenny 1996). However, Section 275 of the Constitution provided for the establishment of a Shari’ah Court of Appeal (subject to the Supreme Court). While Section 10 satisfies Christians and gives the impression that Nigeria is a de jure secular state – where the myth of a liberal democracy that ensures that church and state are separate is upheld (cf. Martin 2010) – Section 275 appeals to Muslims and provides for the supply of religious laws and its enforcement with public money. In practice, however, government policies and practices subvert both of these norms. In twelve northern states, the state governments actively function as suppliers of religion through the reimplementation of expanded versions of the Shari’ah penal code and other forms of active funding and support for Islam (Sanneh 2003; Nmehielle 2004; Suberu 2009; Bolaji 2010).²⁶ Joseph Kenny points out two important concerns regarding this when he writes, “State establishment of Shari’ah is a means for politicians to make points [of disagreement with the federal government] and for associations of Islamic scholars to gain for their members paid position[s] of social power” (Kenny 2010, p. 307).

Another example of government entanglement with religion is in the area of funding pilgrimages. Since 1999, the Nigerian state has spent more money on religious festivals, agencies, institutions and pilgrimages than it does on the provision of social infrastructure. In 2010, a total of 110,000 Nigerians went on pilgrimages: 85,000 were Muslims who went to hajj while 25,000 were Christians who went to Israel and other Christian holy (tourist?) sites in Jerusalem. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the pilgrimages cost a total sum of 16.44 billion Naira, of which the federal government provided a subsidy of 1.52 billion Naira (Oronsaye 2010). These figures pale in comparison to previous years. In 2008, according to figures released by the CBN, pilgrims to Mecca (84,878) and Jerusalem (17,000) cost the national economy 35 billion Naira or 144 million US dollars (cf. Nguvugher ND; cf. Omoh 2009). The government of Nigeria spent US$ 1,500 and US$ 1,000 for each Muslim and each Christian pilgrim, respectively. The state and federal governments and their officials select more than half of the pilgrims. Funding pilgrimage is a way for the government to cement its patronage system. But the sheer volume of yearly pilgrims – Nigeria supplies more than 5% of all annual pilgrims to Mecca – and the amount of state resources expended on the production and circulation of pilgrims are indications of government involvement in religion and the place of religion in the politics of patronage (cf. Oronsaye 2010; cf. Osae-Brown 2012). The political role of religion in Nigeria is clearly visible, and it is argued here that there is a deliberate “political revitalization of religion” (Habermas 2006, p. 1) as a means of national self-perception and representation. A similar process is evident in political advertising, even when the laws regulating the practice prohibit the manipulation of religion in political communication.

3 The Regulation of the Nigerian Political Market and Advertising

Political advertising is regulated in Nigeria, presupposing the existence of divergent political groups. At the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1999, there were only three political parties: People’s Democratic Party (PDP),²⁷ All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), and Alliance for Democracy (AD). By the end of 2002, there were twenty-eight registered political parties competing in the 2003 general elections. Thirty-seven political parties contested in the 2007 general elections and sixty-three in the 2011 general elections.²⁸ The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is the statutory body that registers and monitors political parties and conducts elections in Nigeria.²⁹ The proliferation of political parties is justified by the argument that it provides optimal plurality of choices and options, and, consequently, of increased competition which would ensure the provision of better political products: candidates, policies and programmes. However, extreme plurality of parties has neither provided better political products nor informed choices or decisions by the electorates. As it is now, the multiplication of political parties is following in the steps of the proliferation of Pentecostal churches. This similarity between the Pentecostal market and the political market is important in examining how political marketing mobilises religious images and motifs in the rhetoric of self-representation.

Because the political market is crowded to the point of suffocation, many political parties are simply unable to muster sufficient resources to field candidates for elections. The large number of parties also generates confusion as the electorates are unable to understand their manifestoes and make informed decisions in siding with one party against another. More significantly, the parties have been incapable of properly articulating political ideologies, consistent and coherent economic and fiscal policies or even social philosophy. Parties have been formed and sustained based on individual desires to capture political office and power and the capacity of a few persons to fund such associations. One ostensible reason for the proliferation of parties is the intention and strategy of the ruling party to fractionalise the opposition, thus making the parties not in power very weak and unable to contest the dominance of the PDP. At the federal level, only one party (PDP) has been in power since 1999. This same party controls more than nineteen of the thirty-six state governments in the country. The large number of parties is an indication of how crowded and intensely competitive the Nigerian political market is. In this market, political power is contested and determined in elections, in which political parties as groups, and politicians with stakes as individuals, compete for public loyalty. Such intense competition for public trust and loyalty often reconfigures the society as a market for public loyalty and allegiance.

Political advertising, like advertising generally, is a huge industry in Nigeria. Political competition is a central pillar of multi-party democracy; political advertising is therefore an important aspect of contestation for public offices: it is designed to present parties and candidates to the electorate through the mass media with the purpose of influencing opinions, perceptions and actions of members of the public (Holtz-Bacha/Kaid 2006, p. 3). In political advertising, political actors –parties, individuals, interest groups – decide how to present themselves to the electorate as strategists of winning public trust. Its central objective is to persuade individuals and groups to behave in a specific way desirable to the sponsors of the advertising material, or the political objective of a party, or its candidate, or a politician. Viewed broadly, political advertising sells politicians, abstract ideas or certain intangible values. According to Nicholas O’Shaughnessy and Stephen Henneberg (2002, p. xi), “it embodies a certain level of promise about the future, some kind of attractive life vision, or anything the satisfactions of which are not immediate but long-term, vague, and uncertain”. Political advertising – and advertising in general – usually promises to provide what is lacking in a society, that which is desirable but not readily available (De Mooij 2010; Jhally 1989; O’Barr 2005). In the case of contemporary Nigeria, it is possible to reconstruct the general structures of lack in the society by examining the content, style and form of its political advertisement materials.

The Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) is the government body that regulates advertising practice in Nigeria. Established by Act 55 of 1988 (and as amended by Act 93 of 1992), APCON has the responsibility to determine who are advertising practitioners, to set the standard of knowledge and skills required of such practitioners, and to regulate and control “the practice of advertising in all its aspects and ramifications” (APCON 2005, p. 1). Although advertising, like religion, is resistant to a generally accepted definition, different scholars, advertising agencies, or advertising associations supply a range of definitions. APCON provides two related definitions, namely that advertising is “a form of communication through the media about products, services or ideas paid for by an identified sponsor” (APCON 2005, p. 5); and, “advertisement” is “a communication in the media, paid for by an identified sponsor and directed at a target audience, with the aim of imparting correct information about a product, service, idea or opinion” (APCON 2005, p. 6).

Although not covered by these definitions, advertising is also used in selling a person or personality or a myth and in the construction of brands and brand appeals. In political advertising, the politician (or his ideas, programmes and policies) become a political commodity that – through the medium of advertising – is brought to interact with the larger social world of humans. As shall be adumbrated shortly, many of the political advertisements that employ religious motifs and texts, although feeding from ongoing religious effervescence, can hardly be described as enlightening or imparting “correct information”.

To set the background for a discussion of the use of religion in political advertising, it is important to examine the prescriptions regulating how individuals and groups are to engage in the practice of political advertising. As the regulating body for advertising in Nigeria, APCON has published a seventy-eight-page manual on the rules and regulations guiding the practice of advertising in the country. Section 4.7 of this Code of Advertising Practice (APCON 2005, p. 37–38), made up of eight sub-sections, is devoted entirely to political advertising. All political advertising materials are to be vetted and approved by the Advertising Standards Panel; the advertisements “shall not be deceptive or misleading in word, illustration, photograph, film or sound” (Section § 4.7.2); furthermore, political advertisements “shall be issue-orientated and devoid of abusive statements or references. They shall not employ fake, distorted or unsubstantiated claims, or contain misrepresentations” (Section § 4.7.3). Of central concern to the use of religion in political advertisement, the Code states in Section 4.7.5: “Political advertisements shall not explicitly or implicitly exploit ethnicity, religion or any other sectional interests”.³⁰ Although these prescriptions are clear and properly articulated, the central problem is that all politicians in the country – Christian and Muslim – clearly, openly, and consistently violate them, and APCON appears incapable of enforcing compliance. The provision of Section 4.7.5 suffers the same fate as the non-establishment norm³¹ of the Nigerian Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of a state religion.

4 Vox Dei, Vox Populi: Religion in Political Advertisement

Nigeria has the largest number of Muslims in any African country; it also has the largest number of Christians in any country in Africa. Although each of these two aggressively proselytising religions (Islam and Christianity) claims to have more adherents, Nigeria is almost equally split between Muslims (42 %) and Christians (40 %). About 8% is divided unequally among indigenous religious groups and other fringe religions like Eckankar, Grail Message, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, etc. (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life 2010, p. 19). According to Klaus Hock (2009, p. 274), Nigeria “seems to be thoroughly drenched in religion”. A recent survey by Religion Monitor finds that 92 % of Nigerians surveyed claimed “that they are very religious and 7 percent [claimed] that they are quite religious” (Hock 2009, p. 276). These figures translate to 99 % of Nigerians who claim that religiosity is centrally important to their social, economic and political outlook.

Consequently, religious scepticism, public expression of atheism, or secular humanism is the exception and generally frowned upon by many Nigerians. Religion therefore seems to be a default state of social, economic and political praxis. Similarly, a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reports that 67 % of the Nigerian population is in support of religious leaders publicly expressing their views on political issues, or positively influencing the political culture of the society. However – and rather interesting for the ongoing discussions – 83 % indicate that “it is important for their political leaders to have strong religious beliefs” (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life 2010, p. 52). The mobilisation of religion in commercial and political enterprises is found acceptable, and in fact actively supported in this social and cultural context.³²

Right before any general election in Nigeria, the entire society is drenched in campaign materials in the form of posters, car stickers, almanacs, banners, handbills, billboards, newspaper and newsmagazine advertisements, radio and television advertisements. Produced by a wide range of interest groups, including wealthy patrons or “godfathers”, godsons/daughters, corporate entities, business groups, pressure groups and sycophantic individuals and organisations –campaign materials are ubiquitous. In recent elections, and to reach diaspora Nigerians, the Internet has come to play an important role in creating visibility for contestants; specifically such platforms as blogs, listservs, Twitter and Facebook are recognised as having immense mobilising capacities.

One in a series of posters published and posted virtually all over Nigeria in the months preceding the April 2011 elections, in support of the bid of incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan, depicts a child in a solemn position of prayer, palms folded in front, head slightly lowered, with the following boldly inscribed prayer: “Grant us Goodluck Oh Lord!”. Four different passport-size photographs are also clearly visible on the wall-size poster, two belonging to the president, and the other two to his spouse. The text of this poster (figure 2) does not explicitly indicate that it is a Christian prayer; the image, however, clearly does portray a Judeo-Christian iconography. As children do not vote in Nigeria (voting age is 18), it is curious why and how the poster showed a child in earnest supplication to “God” regarding the choice of a president. Since both image and text are Christian in context, it is important to relate them to their scriptural contexts such as the text of Mark 10:14: “Let the little children come to Me […] for of such is the kingdom of God”.³³ A more relevant biblical text in understanding this poster is Luke 11:11–12 (also Matthew 7:9): “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? […] Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?” Similarly, the above campaign poster evokes the special character of children as innocent and guiltless, vulnerable and worthy to be hearkened to and protected. This nuance is also explicit in Matthew 18:10: “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My father who is in heaven”. In both local and international media, Goodluck Jonathan is ostensibly identified as a “Christian southerner”. He frequents Christian gatherings and is known to make pronouncements in churches. Jonathan has made more high-profile visits to worship sites than he has made to educational and healthcare facilities since assuming office as president of Nigeria. Showing his strong self-portrayal as a “Christian president”, churches are sites of his policy enunciation. The poster, therefore, clearly speaks to a Christian audience or electorate, urging, cajoling, and even mildly blackmailing them to consider Goodluck Jonathan as the candidate of choice for even children who are innocent and closer to God. Not to vote for the candidate chosen by innocent children would amount to despising them, giving them stones in place of bread, snakes instead of fish, scorpions rather than eggs. The choice of a qualified candidate to be president of the federal republic is one that is not based on mature adults, but on the “prayer request” of children to God.

In a similar vein, post-independence Nigeria has been a nation of “bad luck” and “misfortune” brought upon it and its people by deficient leaders. The iconic Nigerian intellectual Chinua Achebe articulates this position in his The Trouble with Nigeria: “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership […] The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which is the hallmarks of true leadership” (Achebe 1984, p. 1). Achebe locates this crushing “leadership misfortune” in “the seminal absence of intellectual rigour in […] political thought” among Nigerian leaders (Achebe 1984, p.11). The failure of leadership decried by Achebe is intricately interwoven with the structures of the Nigerian state. There is a general feeling, particularly from southern Nigeria (the dominantly Christian part) that the incumbent president is a harbinger of providence, good times and good things for the country. He is, as his first name suggests, a bringer of good luck to the Nigerian nation. There is a parallel between this popular perception and what Americans felt about Barack Obama towards the tail end of the second Bush presidency: hope, optimism and aspiration towards re-founding the American nation devastated by financial collapse and two expensive overseas wars. In figure 2, we sense this in the mimicking of the Obama campaign slogan of “Yes We Can!”

The billboard in figure 3 aptly captures the understanding or conceptualisation of political responsibility as a divine initiative. The only qualification of the contestants, who call themselves “The Winning Team”, for the office they seek is their being “God’s chosen people”. This is a group campaign advertisement in the sense that the four individuals whose photographs are on the billboard are competing for different elective offices, at the national, state and senatorial levels; two are Christians (Jonathan and Agboola), two are Muslims (Alao-Akala and Arapaja). The sizes of the photographs are arranged to symbolize the dignity of the respective offices being contested for: from the most elevated office (the presidency) to the least (senatorial seat). Aimed at a multi-religious audience in the southwest of Nigeria (the anchoring text is translated into Yoruba, in smaller print), this advertisement’s explicit Christian imagery and text are moderated and harmonised. Even in the light of this restraint, the caption “God’s Chosen People” is a name of a Pentecostal church, and explicitly related to the Judeo-Christian tradition of the Israelites being “God’s elect”. In Pauline and Christian theology, the Christian Church is “God’s Chosen People”: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he has chosen as his own inheritance” (Ps. 33:12; cf. 1 Peter 2:9–10).

Significant here, as in the analysis of figure 3, is that the choice is initiated by God, and not by the people. The subtle argument in figure 3 is that the electorate needs to confirm a prior choice made by God for certain individuals, the basis of which need not bother anyone for the moment. As chosen people, these political candidates present their credentials not based on the will of the electorate but of a divine being. “Divine election” comes with special entitlements and privileges; those who are divinely chosen are not accountable to the people but to God alone. More importantly, they command the largest portion of public resources. The incongruity in this campaign material is this: if these people are already divinely selected to govern, why do they need to be voted for by the electorate? From the perspective of politicians and from the history of elections since 1999, the will of the people is irrelevant since election outcomes are consistently rigged by corrupt politicians who compromise election officials. Methods of rigging elections include the stuffing of ballot boxes, both by officials and political thugs, as well as the pervasive “godfather factor” (Olarinmoye 2008; Bello 2011). Chinua Achebe succinctly characterises “political godfatherism” as the “archaic practice [which] allows a relative handful of men – many of them half-baked, poorly educated thugs – to sponsor their chosen candidates and push them right through to the desired political position, bribing, threatening and, on occasion, murdering any opposition in the process” (Achebe 2011, par. 11). Godfathers sponsor and rig elections; and in the perspective of figure 3, “God’s chosen people” win elections.

As De Mooij (2010, p. 1) argues, in order to be effective and attract public attention and interest, advertising generally promises to provide what a society lacks. During the military era, many thought what the Nigerian society needed in order to progress were democracy and the citizens’ ability to determine and actualise their potentials. Since 1999, it has become obvious that what Nigeria lacks are politicians with integrity, or to paraphrase the words of Achebe (2011, par. 22), leaders humbled by the trust placed upon them by the people who use the power given them for the good of the people. This is, in other words, the call for selfless and responsible leadership. At the root of the “leadership misfortune” that plagues Nigeria is corruption. When politicians advertise themselves as “righteous”, they are promising to supply political virtue, the absence of which is responsible for the present predicament of the country. It is in this context that figure 4 is to be read and understood. The text of the billboard (figure 4) is a quotation from Psalm 29:2. The candidates whose photographs are sandwiched between the logotype of the political party (PDP) and the coat of arms of the nation (a symbol of state power and status) are explicitly presenting themselves as righteous candidates. “Righteousness” is a religious virtue and not a political one; probity is, however. The claim of righteousness by these candidates in this campaign material, many observers of the Nigerian political scene would insist, belies their history and performance as governors in their respective states. Every politician for elective office promises to eradicate corruption, but ends up being more corrupt than his or her predecessor is. Goodluck Jonathan is no different. He served as deputy governor and governor of Bayelsa state,³⁴ vice president, and now as president of the nation. Very few politicians ascend to any political position without going through some form of corrupt, client-patron arrangement. It is not, therefore, possible or even advisable for them to dismantle the scaffolding through which they did ascend. One veritable way of obscuring their identity, laundering their corrupt image, and creating a myth around their intentions, is to represent themselves through the advertising medium as “righteous” politicians. By associating the most corrupt politicians with images of “righteousness”, “elects of God”, and ennobling virtues of religion and then repeating these frequently through massive advertising campaigns, the public may begin to buy into the propaganda, and, for example, associate Goodluck Jonathan with good luck for Nigeria (Lynch/McGoldrick 2005, p. 109). The insertion of religious ideas and aspirations into political campaign materials of the type under discussion has its own irony: since Jonathan became president, Nigerians – other than those in the corridors of political power – have lost the sense, meaning and experience of “rejoicing”. Life is now harder for Nigerians than ever before as about 90 % live off of under US$ 2 a day; it is estimated that US$ 412 billion of public money has been stolen by government officials in Nigeria since 1960, hence for many years it has been consistently ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International. Yet it is governed by “righteous politicians”.

Politicians construct themselves in their campaign materials as “God’s Chosen People”, who would rule or lead the people righteously and so make the society “rejoice”. In figure 5, a massive billboard proclaims a politician as “God’s Will” for governing the state. The pun here is palpable: the politician’s name is Godswill Akpabio; in slightly modifying his first name, he locates the reason for running for governor in the deepest recesses of a metaphysical realm. By turning a proper noun (Godswill) to a phrase (God’s Will), this advertising material shifts the focus of the campaign to a site that resists scrutiny. It is not possible to ascertain what the will of God is in political matters; virtually any person can ascribe divine authority to his or her actions. More importantly, by constructing his desire as “God’s Will”, all his opponents are invariably constructed as against God’s will or pursuing the devil’s will, since in popular religious thinking, the devil’s will is antithetical to God’s desires. The subtle blackmail in this advertising material is such that, because his political opponents are constructed as carrying out the will of Satan, they may be persecuted and harmed; Godswill may rig the elections in order to “fulfil God’s will”. A divine will to fix Nigeria may be far-fetched considering that it did not take divine will to couple Nigeria as a nation by Lugard. However, what Nigeria needs to confront the multitude of problems she is facing in the 21^st century, is not a “continuation” of “business as usual”, divine or otherwise, but a radical transformation of structures and governance behaviour. According to Wole Soyinka, “[w]e need a complete systemic transformation” (quoted in: Adeniji 2012, par. 5). Almost all the political campaign materials produced by politicians already in the corridors of power appealed for the “continuation” of the present, dysfunctional system. Religion is mobilised to maintain the present structural inequality, a situation in which 90 % of the wealth of the nation is in the hands of 5% of the population.

Two related campaign materials from the same politician have sub-texts that read, “Let God’s will be done again”; and “Let God’s will continue”. The first of the texts assumes that the 2007 elections, generally judged to be the worst general elections in the history of Nigeria, were a manifestation of “God’s will”. This revisionist history – reconstructing a rigged election as the “will of God” – is akin to the more pervasive Pentecostal belief that wealth, no matter its source, is a manifestation of divine blessing (Harrison 2005; Onoja 2009; Yong/Attanasi 2012). The importance or connection between Pentecostal upsurge and the production of pentecostalising political campaign materials cannot completely be dismissed. A pertinent example here is from the governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who had a number of billboards mounted along major highways in Port Harcourt proclaiming the words of Psalm 62:11: “God hath spoken once, twice have I heard this: That power belongeth unto God” (figure 6). Since the capture of power – and with it access to public treasury – is the ultimate objective of Nigerian politicians, whichever way this is achieved, it is defined as the will of God. And if it is the will of God, it is futile, or rather ungodly, for opponents to contest it.

The second text that says “Let God’s will continue” – builds on the first and aims at restructuring public perception to judge the governor’s stay in office as the will of God and his regime as the reign of God. If his regime is accepted as the reign of God, opposition politicians are at a loss in analysing his policies and practices. Of course theocracies are not accountable to the electorate, since the will of the electorate is discounted.

In principle, politicians in elective positions are “public servants” with clearly delineated responsibility to manage public affairs such as the provision of public infrastructure (education, health care, utilities) and the guarantee of public safety. In other words, by electing a public officer, the citizens entrust the charge of a state or nation or municipality into his/her hands, meaning s/he takes responsibility for the welfare of the unit of governance. As is shown in figure 7, a governor of a state in the southeast of Nigeria inundated the state capital with billboards proclaiming that the welfare of the state “is in the Hands of God”. In the billboard, the photograph of the bespectacled governor – with his gaze gently turned heavenward as if contemplating the divine origin of his bureaucratic powers, looking unperturbed and serene – is inserted in the map of the state and placed in the half-opened, curved pair of dark-skinned hands. From the image, the governor’s primary gaze – how he sees and wants to be seen by the people he governs³⁵ – and dedication are turned away from the people to an empty space skyward from whence, he believes, his legitimacy is bestowed. In a society where more than 80 % of its citizens are living below poverty level and its chief security and welfare officer – in the person of the governor – is looking robust, well-fed and serene, gazing into the afternoon sky would amount to a clear dereliction of duty and gross irresponsibility. There was no public outrage against this billboard even though it was financed with public money. Local politics is seen by many individuals as divine elevation to economic well-being. A political billboard from Kaduna in northern Nigeria is simply captioned “Divine Elevation” rather than “public service” or “call to duty”.

Putting Nigeria in the hands of God is not new. In 2004, former President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999–2007) informed Nigerians that “[i]n my dreams I see a new Nigeria in the hands of God” (Obasanjo 2004, p. iii). The consequences of his placing “Nigeria in the hands of God” were disastrous: among other things, he became the most corrupt president in the history of Nigeria, according to the report of a parliamentary probe into contracts he awarded for electricity supply (cf. Adeniyi 2011). Considering the revelations from the investigation of the national assembly since 2007, Obasango’s regime (mis)appropriated more than US$ 16 billion for the generation of electricity only to produce more darkness; he embarked on an disastrous “third term” project against constitutional provisions on term limits; he manipulated state structures and institutions such as the police and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), in order to harass and intimidate his political opponents. He morphed into a “super-godfather”, who foisted the grossly incompetent Yaradu’a/Jonathan government on Nigerians, through the worst “elections” ever conducted in Nigeria. Above all, even when he claimed to have been ordained a pastor while in Abacha’s prison and to have fraternized with such popular pastors as Enoch Adeboye (Ukah 2008, p. 200–205), he demonstrated a public disdain for religious authorities who dared to challenge his policies.

Politicians placing a political entity in the “hand” of God has never brought about a positive transformation of society (Onumah 2011). Rather, the evocation of “God” either in political advertisements or in state policies, whether in the Shari’ah states of northern Nigeria or by “Christian” politicians in southern Nigeria – as in figure 7 – is a manipulative strategy of masking entrenched corruption and maladministration, a demonstration of an exclusivist political theology where religious sources are deployed in service of personal political interest. It is an indication of extreme individualism, state dysfunction and absence of national ideals or creative political imagination.

The use of religious stereotypes and imageries in political advertising is found everywhere in Nigeria; it is practiced by both southern and northern politicians. A critical analysis of these campaign materials is carried out in this essay by examining the primary and secondary meanings of messages being conveyed. Nevertheless, there may be secondary or hidden messages contained in the advertisements that may be equally important in understanding how such messages distort reality, uphold the status quo or maintain the dominant views of the powerful in the society (Alozie 2005, p. 202). The advertisements considered here have both political and religious meanings: they sell politicians as religiously upright and virtuous persons, and, therefore, as well-meaning, moral candidates; they also sell “establishment religiosity” as an important political attribute of candidates vying for public office. Many of these materials unambiguously violate the regulations of APCON that campaign materials should only provide “correct information”, and not exploit religion to make “unsubstantiated claims” or “misrepresentations” (APCON 2005, p. 37). That they are condoned illustrates how deeply entrenched religious thinking and perception are even among the officials who are supposed to police advertising and commercial practices. To a majority of Nigerians, religion and politics are intrinsically interwoven; but they also notice the abuse and confusion. This interrelationship does not mean that the nation is the better for it. Contrary to the views of Ogbu Kalu cited at the beginning of this essay, in a liberal democracy and in a multi-religious society, religion does not, and need not, provide the reason for the love of the ruler by the ruled, nor is it the motive to obey the ruler. Religion has not, and does not need to, set the standard and style of power, and neither has it been the engine that moves governance. As present episodes of ethno-religious crises, including the Boko Haram insurrection, irrefutably demonstrate, religion may be the symptom of all that is wrong with, and in, Nigeria (Abimbola 2010; Onuoha 2010); its ubiquity in politics, economics and society may be the sign of the country’s de-development rather than positive transformation. Its inescapable presence and staging in politics simply means that a way must be found – through the rigour of analysis –to harness the best potentials of the system.

5 Conclusion

The advertisement materials examined above graphically illustrate the nature of the Nigerian political system built on neo-patrimonialism – meaning, where a state’s chief executive bases his authority on a personal patronage system rather than on law or a political philosophy or imagination. The patronage system may have a religious source. In this system, the right to rule is not vested in an office but in a person and his alleged divine connections. In this scheme of things – and in similar systems elsewhere – the conceptualization of religion as a discrete or separate aspect of social life not having anything to do with political behaviour is increasingly destabilised by contemporary practices in which metaphysical and spiritual beliefs aggressively and unapologetically insert themselves in the conception and practice of politics. While religious beliefs and practices have traditionally played certain roles in Nigeria, never before in the history of post-colonial Nigeria had religion played as pivotal and organising a role as it has in the present dispensation (1999-present). With sixty-three registered political parties, political contest is characterised by such intensity, violence and malpractice that the electorate is all but discounted. When elected officials claim a theocratic role in governance, they subvert democracy as they appropriate bureaucratic power while exercising it as a private or religious property. Politicians conceived as “God’s chosen people” do not need to account for their actions and policies to the electorate. This is part of the source or cause of impunity in contemporary Nigeria.

The three most lucrative and most corrupt industries in contemporary Nigeria are politics,³⁶ oil and gas (Adebanwi 2012), and religion (Ukah 2011). Common to these domains are their confounding opaqueness, resistance to accountability, and depth of corruption and malfeasance (Adebanwi/Obadare 2011; Achebe 2012, p. 249–250).³⁷ These industries are masked in mysteriousness. Similarly, recent political advertising campaigns demonstrate the increasing mobilisation of religious ideas, texts, motifs and images in creating a myth of the righteous, divinely elected politician who has a sacred mandate to execute the will of a mystifying, metaphysical, inscrutable entity. Recent popular demands for probity and prosecution of corrupt public office holders indicate that the myth-making programme of the political class is not holding up as expected. Capturing political power guarantees access to oil revenues; religious motifs are mobilised to reinforce and sustain political domination and the cultivation of a lack of transparency and accountability. That politicians make their claims to charismatic authority and power publicly, even while their performance is framed within a legal-rational bureaucracy, illustrates the political character of religion in contemporary Nigeria. Religion in political advertising serves as a process that regulates or controls the perception of the electorate as well as the influence on public opinion (Kuran 1995, p. 2–5). As the cases of high profile political corruption amply demonstrate, Nigerian politicians are not virtuous, as they are very corrupt and demonstrate fiscal irresponsibility. However, the deployment of religion in political campaigning is a case of preference falsification in order to conform to public expectations. In this sense, public display of religion and religiosity is a systematic strategy of concealment of politicians’ private preferences in order to avoid disapproval, protect personal integrity and image, but also to win public approval by manipulating public feelings.

How does religion function in Nigeria’s democracy? On the one hand, it may be constructed to play the role of a midwife, creatively bringing about a form of democracy in tune with the local depths of religiosity, a sort of indigenised democracy. On the other hand, it may be construed differently, namely as performing the duties of a handmaid, a social structure that plays a subsidiary role of support but not producing anything new or distinctive, either locally or culturally. The conception of religion as apolitical, something invisible and out of reach of politicians, is indeed an ideological construction that masks some insidious consequences of religion. The ways in which religious images and ideas, the imaginary and motifs are “used” or deployed in the political discourse in emerging democracies such as Nigeria call for a rethinking of the meaning of religion in the 21^st century. Religion has an ambivalent relationship to politics, as well as to other spheres of human experience. The performance of religion in political campaigns in Nigeria and the staging of the “righteous politician” destabilise and transgress the Westphalian paradigm regarding the relationship between state and religion. Considering the obvious and subtle ways in which religion is mobilised in political discourses in Nigeria (as demonstrated by foregoing discussion) and elsewhere, there is a need to reconceptualise religion to take into account the general inclination of the electorate and the political character of religion itself. In the life-worlds of many Nigerians – and in the experiences of many societies around the world (Strenski 2010; Martin 2010; Turner 2011; Barbalet/Possamai/ Turner 2011; Blackford 2012) – religion is not conceived as apolitical, that is, consigned to the private activity of individuals. If religion is conceptualised as apolitical, it would result in a great disjuncture with social and political realities and experiences of many societies across the world. This is empirically the case as regards how religion is publicly performed in Nigeria, and particularly as to how it is inserted into political advertising campaigns.

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