Electoral Zoning Saga and Public Persuasion. A Prospective Evaluation of the 2023 Cross River State Gubernatorial Election Outcome

Scientific Essay in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Africa, , language: English, abstract: This article examined the Electoral Zoning Saga and Public Persuasion of the 2023 Cross River State Gubernatorial Election. Critically deliberating on the two schools of thoughts existent in this context - one which agrees with the implementation of the political zoning standard and the other which disagrees in disagreement. The agenda setting theory as well as the social judgement theory were adopted in the article to establish a workable theoretical framework. The study employed the interpretivist paradigm of qualitative analysis and a finding from textual analysis of respondents speech contents portray that campaign contents that will not reflect unity and social cohesion void of ethnic bias will increase the difficulties in the state.

Essien Oku Essien is a recent First Class Graduate of Mass Communication and Research from the University of Cross River State who leverages his Researching skills in the advocacy for the inclusion of the rural regions in the drive for development. Essien has been actively involved and concerned with the actualization and such involvements and volunteering had led to his conferment as the 2018 SDG Student Ambassador by the Institute of Corporate Management and Professional Studies. In 2020 Essien Oku represented West Africa in the 6th edition of the International Marine Conservationist Conference (IMCC6) Kiel City, Germany where he presented a framework that vividly addressed the SDG 14 "Live Below Waters" the result of this which was forwarded to the official website of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In 2021, Essien participated in the ARISE CROSS RIVER PROJECT of the MANN Foundation, Nigeria where he presented a research paper that succinctly addressed the SDG 1 "No Poverty" with applicable strategies for the resolution of the issue of child homelessness. In 2022, Essien had voluntarily participated in the promotion of the SDG 6 "Clean Water and Sanitation" during the World Water Day, this which had earned him an Award from the World Wildlife Fund. By October, 2022, Essien will be uncoupling a framework at the Why it Matters Conference, Utah, USA which will address and present achievable strategies for virtually all the SDGs through a model initiated around the SDG 9 "Industry, Innovations and Infrastructure".