Microteacher and Associates No 4 Alpha Street High level, Makurdi, Benue State
Abstract
Communicating to staff and members of political
party is no small task. This challenge is further
complicated in political parties that have wide
geographic spread, whereby the national
headquarter is responsible for sending the same
messages to state or local offices in geographically
dispersed locations. The broad objective of this study,
therefore, is to interrogate the contemporary role of
organisational communication in electoral politics.
Specifically, however, the study seeks to establish the
relationship between message development and
political party efficiency. In pursuit of this objective,
the survey method of research was employed to
collect data from 278 staff and supporters of ten
political parties in the six geo-political zones of
Nigeria. The data were analysed with some
descriptive statistics, such as frequencies, tables,
percentages etc. Also, some hypotheses were
formulated and tested with regression and Pearson's product movement correlation. The findings revealed
among other things that, effective communication ·
among a political party's hierarchies is a
desideratumJor success at the polls. Besides,
organisational communication was found to
influence and motivate the behavioural performance
of party staff and supporters. It is therefore,
recommended that political parties should strengthen
their internal communication channels in order to
achieve electoral succes
