Majority of
Nigerians are using facebook, twitter and other social media more for
entertainment than for tasking the government on good governance efforts
towards national development.
This is the
position of stakeholders at a three-day social media retreat in Uyo, Akwa Ibom
State theme “Using Social Media for Improved Democratic Governance and Citizen
Participation” organised by the Democratic Governance for Development (DGD ll)
Project, the European Union, the Department for International Development
(DFID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Youth Action Initiative Africa (YAIA).
Executive Director
of the West African NGO Network (WNAGOnet), Tunji Lardner, speaking on ‘An
overview of the Social Media Landscape in Nigeria’ said a report of a research
by the Applied Physics Lab of the Johns Hopkins University shows that between
April 2010 and October 2011, 131 million tweets were collected from 633, 217
users in Nigeria.
“Nigeria has
5,86,720 face book users, with 87.9 percent mobile penetration second world
highest and 2,152,440 population between the ages 18-24. However, the list of
top 10 twitter accounts based on the number of Nigerian followers includes the
accounts of seven musicians and actors, two newspapers and one television
station devoted to entertainment,” Lardner said while urging Nigerians to
rather emulate youths of other countries who exploit the social media to
promote good governance.
Source: Daily Trust
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