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Accepted Paper:
Harnessing Twitter and Facebook for Political Change by the Obedient Movement in Nigeria: Gains, Failures and Prospects
Victor Eze
(French Institute for Research in Africa)
Nigerian youths employed social media to organize and launch themselves in their quest to bring about change during the 2023 elections. They recorded some achievements by putting up strong political shows that resulted in the replacement of some old politicians, though not without some failures.
Paper long abstract:
The 2023 elections in Nigeria were preceded by a huge expression of interest to vote and be voted for by the Nigerian youths. Unlike in the past when voter apathy was on the ascendancy, the bulk of the youths were eager to participate in the 2023 elections, a situation that saw the youth being the major registrants for the voters’ card. Towards the 2023 elections, youths constituted 71 percent of the 12 million fresh applicants for Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) in the continuous voter registration exercise (CVR) which commenced in June 2021 and ended on July 31, 2022. Voter education among the youth was carried out mainly on social media with the primary goal of replacing old political guards with younger and more progressive politicians. While the youths employed Twitter and Facebook to organize and launch themselves out in their quest to bring about change, much was achieved but with certain apparent failures. Through content analysis of some of their Tweets and Facebook posts before, during, and after elections, this study argues that even though the Obedient Movement utilized social media a lot to organize themselves towards the 2023 election and recorded great political outing, if certain loopholes are plugged, they can do in future elections.