Public Relations and Managing Post-election interpersonal conflicts among citizens during the 2023 general elections in Nigeria

Abstract

The 2023 general elections in Nigeria overheated the polity, generated sentiments and hate speeches which divided people and affected their personal relationship. This paper, therefore, examined how public relations could be deployed in managing interpersonal conflicts among people in Choba, as a result of the election. Three objectives were formulated. The theories used were cognitive dissonance and frustration aggression. Survey design including a focus group discussion helped in extracting the data. The population of the community was put at 5281 while the sample size was 361. four persons were used for the focus group discussion. The study found out that public relations could be used to manage the interpersonal conflicts through dialogue, public enlightenment, jingles among other findings. It recommended that the Nigerian Pinstitute of Public Relations (NIPR Rivers Chapter) should be the organization to drive the reconciliation of the interpersonal conflicts in 2023 general election using interpersonal and mass communication activities to douse a lot of ill feelings arising from the elections in the community.