Youth, Social Media, and the Nigerian Elections

 

Today, president-elect Muhammadu Buhari will be sworn into office in Nigeria.

The 2015 Nigerian general elections have been described as the most peaceful in the country’s history – this was the first time where a sitting president was ousted through the ballot box, the elections recorded the highest number of electorates’ turnout. While expectations were that the elections would be marred by violence – threats by politicians and interest groups were made before the election – the nation managed to form a stronger bond without brutality.  

Also notable was how election campaigning and commentary played out on social media, in particular on Twitter. In a youthful country like Nigeria where half the population is under the voting age of 18, if you can’t win the youth vote, you won’t win the election. And while Nigerians doesn’t always have electricity at home or in schools, social media still is the place where young, smart-phone-thumbing residents in big cities like Lagos hang out.

Prior to the elections, the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the opposition party created Twitter accounts and directly engaged with the young people. Voters, in turn, turned to social media as well to make informed decisions and have discussions around the election process. Hashtags like #NigeriaDecides and #NigeriaElection2015 were used throughout the campaign by the both political parties and voters.  

YTF’s PeaceOpoly program is based on the premise that technology has the power to bring democracy in countries like Nigeria. We’ve held workshops at universities and vocational institutions throughout the nation to teach and inspire youth to use social media to strengthen their voices and capacities. This year in particular, we were humbled to hear our students’ testimonies as they described how the program influenced their participation in the 2015 elections both online and offline.  

In particular, we encouraged PeaceOpoly participants’ use of the #MyPollingUnit hashtag during this year, which was designed to be a unifying hashtag for students to ask hard-hitting questions and create a deep conversation between peers.

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We’ve previosly wrote that democracy is possible in countries like Nigeria through civic mobilization and technology. We’re thankful to the Nigerian citizens for proving us right, and we’re confident that sustainable and stable governance in the long-term is also possible.

We’ll continue to work hard at bringing democracy through programs like PeaceOpoly until Nigerian citizens prove us right again.  

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Bankole is a content developer for PeaceOpoly.  He describes himself as an incurable media junkie, a rookie accountant and a book reader and a movie addict.  

 

 

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