Mass Mobilization of Citizens in Democracy - The effect of social media on citizen participation in Nigerian politics : special Focus on the 2023 Elections

Abstract

The major objective of this study is to examine the role of social media in Nigeria’s general elections of 2023 especially in mobilization and participation of citizens in the democratic process of electing public officials. This study focused on this theme because of the enthusiasm and active involvement of not just the regular political players but significantly, the youths, social media influencers and a vibrant political ‘third force’ that changed the usual 2 horse race since the beginning of the fourth political dispensation in 1999 to a three-horse race. The outcome of the election proved that the effect of social media transmuted from online to actual votes offline where for the first time in the history of Nigeria, no candidate got even 50% of total vote count. The entire activities of the 2023 elections showed that technology has come to stay in politics especially in communication, participation and mobilization. The survey method was used to gather data from respondents on various aspects of the 2023 elections and analyzed to understand the reasons behind their decisions on candidates, party, issues of interest, medium of accessing political information etc. The result showed that social media was very instrumental to information receipt and dissemination by enabling real-time fact-checking of political information. The use of social media will be bigger in Nigeria’s future political activities because of the ceiling it broke by letting in new players. The more smart devices gain ground among the citizens, the more the influence of social media will be. The result successfully established that the political campaign trajectory of Nigeria has changed from a dominant mainstream media practice to a modern hybrid media system with social media leading the drive. All the major entities involved in the various democratic and political activities of Nigeria will find the findings of this study very useful in their future plans on any aspect of citizens' mobilization for election purposes.