Nigeria Youths, Elections And The Social Media -By Akinyemi Akinola

On my mind this evening;

First, congratulations to the governor elect of my dear state- Ekiti. (We’ll talk more on that later)

Again, any serious Nigerian should be worried about the voter’s turnout when compared to the number of registered voters. It shows nothing has really changed, people in the west or south generally still don’t care about who gets to power but only want to complain, criticize and analyse the person when he’s eventually voted in by a more serious people. It also shows how the noise of “get your voter’s card” on social media may not necessarily translate to a large turnout on election day, there are reasons why we have voter’s apathy, until the reasons are well researched and addressed, the apathy will continue no matter the approach we adopt.

Low turn out of voters will always put to question the legitimacy of a government.

Lastly, I have been wondering, when the English premier League or the football season resumes, Big brother Naija starts airing and ASUU calls off her strike action. Will the enthusiasm remain the same? I mean the noise about PVCs. Will Peter Obi also remain a contender or will he also be smart enough to translate the social media “gragra” into real followership?

While I will not be foolish to downplay the effect of social media, I also wait to see if the real and main interests of Nigerian youths, when they eventually begin (football, BBN, school etc) will not cause a major distraction or kill the present enthusiasm.