LAGOS, NIGERIA – Esther Eshiet, 24, a social worker in southern Nigeria, says she used social media programs such as Facebook and Twitter to report on what transpired at her polling units and learn about what happened at polling units across the country during the presidential and parliamentary elections this month.
“The platforms were great!” Eshiet says. “Especially Twitter, it provided me the opportunity to be followed by different persons and different news agencies. My tweets were quoted by international media firms.”
"My perspective on politics and political participation changed. "
Eshiet says she also used ReVoDa, a program that encouraged the 87,297,789 Nigerians with mobile phones and 43,982,200 Nigerians with Internet access to be “informal election observers.” Created by Enough is Enough Nigeria, a coalition of young people and youth organizations seeking good governance and public accountability, ReVoDa made it possible for registered voters to report from their respective polling units across Nigeria and receive election information via its mobile application or text message.
“The amazing thing about social media that I like is the ability it [provides to] use a small device as a GSM phone to break communication gaps that had existed in the past,” says Eshiet, who says she also uploaded photos of the citizens who turned out en masse to vote.
She says that the new information and communication technologies, ICTs, not only encouraged young people to participate but also helped to preserve the integrity of the elections.
“Using ICTs to monitor elections in Nigeria has proved to me that elections can be free and fair in my country and in extension Africa,” Eshiet says.
She says that she hopes that technology will continue to help elections evolve.
“There should be an [application] developed and utilized if already in existence, which would ensure results are transmitted directly from polling units to the electoral commission,” she says.
Most Nigerians follow elections through traditional media, which young people say aren’t interactive and tend to portray them negatively. But thanks to an explosion of social media and election websites here, young Nigerians say that new media encouraged them to actively and positively participate in this month’s elections. They say that it also helped them to monitor corruption and violence. Although challenges still exist, such as limited Internet access and government cooperation, they say they are optimistic that technology will continue to foster fair and free elections.
Incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan won re-election in Nigeria earlier this month. Young voters trooped to the polls in large numbers, according to various media reports. About 70 percent of the population is under 35, according to Enough is Enough Nigeria, which also helped mobilize young people to vote through its RSVP campaign – Register to vote, Select a candidate to vote for, Vote during the election and Protect your vote.
The number of registered voters in Nigeria has risen throughout the years, from almost 58 million in 1999 to 67 million this year, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Many called the 2011 election Nigeria’s most peaceful one yet and said they hoped it was a sign of progress in a country with, according to Enough is Enough Nigeria, a history of election manipulation.
Young people here say that one sign of this progress was the shift in the use of media during the election that enabled them to become more involved in the process.
