Social media was created as a means to bring people of the world closer to each other. It was a valid tool because it had the ability to make people who were thousands of miles away speak to each other in real time. It was one of the most innovative inventions of man because it gave platforms to just about everyone. There were equal opportunities for everyone.
Social media took the power that had long since been owned by the corporate media and placed it in the hands of the people. Before social media, we had to rely heavily on whatever the TV stations and news channels told us. We followed radio shows religiously because we knew that if we missed even one session, we could be missing out on a piece of vital information.
Well, thanks to social media, we don’t have to rely so much on the media. Instead of listening to events happening on the news, we can get the full story right from the horse’s mouth! Thanks to social media, everyone is a potential reporter, journalist, motivational speaker, judge, critic… and the list goes on and on. With social media, you can do anything at all that you want. And that’s the beauty of it.
Before now, in Nigeria, social media was just seen as a platform where lazy youths spent their time. Most of our politicians didn’t really pay much attention to it. It was that period where people felt that they couldn’t soil their dignity and good name by having handles on social media. But then, 2020 rolled around and we all saw the power of social media.
First, with the pandemic, many people saw that there was a goldmine there to be explored. That year saw the birth of so many content creators who were making good money from their content. And as the year rolled on, #ENDSARS happened, and the Nigerian government finally saw what could happen when Nigerian Youths decided to speak up for themselves. A massive protest that shook the entire nation and was coordinated strictly through social media. Finally, the government was noticing.
Sadly though, it was the wrong type of attention because at first they tried to fight it. Laws were made regarding online posts, and even Twitter got banned for a while. And during the election, a major section of the campaigns was done online. Many candidates pushed their agendas through social media, they hired so many people to make posts about them online. Influencers were hired to… well, influence prospective voters in their favor.
Was that the end? Hell no! Nigerian politics and social media have been a very bad combo. Because at the start, when everything was bad, we all thought we were on the same page. We all thought we wanted a better country for ourselves. Sadly, the same social media that gave us a united goal ended up being the very one that tore us apart.
Soon enough, instead of questioning the qualifications of the candidates, we started fighting each other. Issues that should never have been a debate to begin with started taking center stage, while the main issue was conveniently forgotten. Because when it comes to the future of our people and our lives, why the hell are so many of us focused on tribe and religion? Tribe and religion were used to cleave a divide between us all, and to date, we’re yet to recover from it.
We’re all still suffering; the only people who are enjoying this administration are those in power. Not the masses, and not even the people who defended them so passionately. All of us are collecting this woto-woto together.
And you know the funny thing? We’ve still not learned our lesson. The next election is in 2027, regardless of what people say now. We all know that once that time reaches, they simply use tribe and religion as a means to divide everyone once again. And because we’re a people who love to forget, we’d conveniently forget all that we’ve had to go through simply because we were looking at life through the lens of tribe and religion.
So, in the overall well-being of Nigeria as a country, social media has not really been favorable. I’d say it’s just 50/50. It’s thanks to social media that we know about so many atrocities that are going on in several parts of the country. After all, #ENDSARS would never have happened without social media. But then, social media also played a huge role in this just-concluded election. It plays a huge role in the government’s distraction tactics that make us lose focus and divert it to something less important.
The solution? It lies with us. I believe that we can do better. We shouldn’t be so easy to sway. We should learn to take some things at face value. Because when it comes to the online space, it’s so easy for things to blow up and become a major deal. We can do better. Not just for ourselves and for our country. But for the coming generations as well. We owe them a country that one would be proud of.
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Thank you for this.
Social media has the power to make people understand better about politics and take the right decision but at the same time it is capable enough to start a clash. It depends on us how we can utilize it. Now government are also very concerned about social media and they also taken many steps to restrict people to say something against the ruling party.
Yeah... just as we're learning the power of social media, so are the people in power. That's why they keep doing everything they can to silence us.