This was disclosed, Thursday, at a PDP Social Media communication Interactive Forum organized by members of PDP Social Media Directorate in Abuja.
In his keynote address entitled: ‘The Role of Communication in Party and Development’, Mr. Barnes, stated that the 2015 general election was largely fought and won on the social media.
He said that the then ruling party (PDP) lost the election because of its inability to recognize the power of social media and its failure to harmonize its communication channels and charged them to re-strategize if they must bounce back in future elections.
Barnes said no party building task is more important than the development of a successful communications programme because it affects everything a party does.
‘‘No matter what a political party does, if it does not have effective communication, it can’t achieve much. PDP needs more strategic engagement to lose and unbundle any negative impression already created by the opposition.’’
‘‘What PDP should emphasize is to de-emphasize confrontational statements with the ruling party in order to change the narrative.
‘‘Candidates should come down to the level of the electorates and have handshake with them,‘’ he added.
The convener of the workshop, Mr. Deji Adeyanju told journalists that the essence of the workshop was to gather party members to discuss how they can communicate better via social media platform, with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Also he stated that the meeting was to deliberate on issues that concern the party and the challenges in the face of what he called the deliberate plan by the ruling party to crush the main opposition party, (PDP).
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