Click, Share, Protest:The Social Media Surge In Nigerian Politics

Social media today all over world has a great influence on everything and this could either be good or bad, we live in the 21st century where everything is now mostly digital, people no longer stress about hosting meetings physical when it can be done from the comfort of our homes, this influence also applies in politics all over the world not just in my country, Nigeria only. Social media has emerge has a very powerful tool in political engagement. The rise of X (formerly knows as twitter), Facebook, Instagram and even down to WhatsApp that used to be very intimate has significantly altered the political lanscape.
The new update on WhatsApp now has a way of joining different groups and recently I saw that one of the groups were Nigeria government groups.

(Photo is mine)

What was once exclusive domain for political elites has now being opened up to everyday citizens, activists and the youths, Infact since most important messages are being passed through social media, the youths don’t hesitate to drag the Nigerian politicians everyday on social media.
A very good example was the year 2020, we didn’t only face the covid 19 issues but ENDSARS, and I could boldly say that movement was really possible through the influence of Social media, It was all over X, Facebook and Instagram, different youths from different states could only have communicated through social media, thousands of relentless youths came out and only social media made it possible, hashtags were used to coordinate protests, raising of funds and sharing of legal resources and through social media was the only way to document incidents that happened in real time.

We all know that politicians can be very sneaky, and also whatever thing that has an advantage also as a disadvantage, the politicians in my country would always find a way to utilize anything to their benefit, Social media to them is now a way to pass any form of information to the masses, they no longer use the normal traditional media, once they have a very important message, apart from people who actually watch the news on tv, the most fastest place to get the information is on X, once any information gets there then trust me for that news to spread like a wild fire.

(Photo was imagined by Ai)

Social media has made campaigning more cost-effective, they don’t really have to spend much on bill boards or banners anymore, they put out whatever information they want us to know in the social space amd every single person gets, infact we the masses help them to pass the informations by posting it on our status and stories.

In the long run for me its been two ways about, I’m someone who don’t really watch tv not to talk sitting down to watch thee news, infact in my house, its been more than a that we subscribed the decoder so there’s really no way to watch the news, so I get all the informations I want from my phone and it’s obviously through social media, so for thats a good thing, but then again back in the days when the social media thing was really rampered the politicians go all out to do campaigns both small and big, and there was also less dragging of the politicians on social media.

If there’s anything I would love to change then it should be the fact so many politicians spread misinformation and also hire online trolls to dissenting voices and raising concerns about ethical use.

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