PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF THE USE OF OPINION LEADERS BY APC IN THE 2022 GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION IN OSUN STATE

The research work “public perception use of opinion leader by APC in 2022 gubernatorial election in Osun State”; objective of the study is to understand the role played by the opinion leaders in communicating during the 2022 governorship election and identify how effective opinion leaders were in communicating during 2022 gubernatorial election. The population of this study consist of residents of Osun state, which are 228.104 questionnaire are used as primary data to designed and distributed to relevant. Information from the respondents, the data gathered were analyzed descriptively and quantitatively to provide insight into the newspaper editorial on the success of governorship election in Osun State. A total number of one hundred and forty-five (145) copies of questionnaire were distributed among respondents and one hundred and forty copies (140) of questionnaires were return and found valid while five copies of questionnaire were not return. In conclusion according to the research work the respondents were not privy to political campaign to make informed voting decisions. Therefore, they depended on the opinion leaders for political decisions. However, despite the fact that the people were politically active, they still depend more on informal sources than formal sources or channels such as radio and television for political information. while the recommendation are giving as government should provide an efficient information delivery mechanism that would guide the voting decisions of the people. The information delivery mechanism must be one that will take special cognizance of the information needs of the rural communities and electoral bodies like INEC should evolve a communication channel that would be targeted at the conscience of the opinion leaders so that they can credibly and truthfully guide the voting decisions of the people.