A lot happened in 2005.
It was the year Nigeria introduced the ₦1,000 note and raised the petrol pump price from ₦61 to ₦80. It was the year Governor Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa escaped a money laundering trial in the UK by dressing as a woman—allegedly. It was the year Nigeria lost over 200 lives to two plane crashes within two months, and lost the first lady to a liposuction surgery abroad.
It was also the year 22-year-old Seun Osewa founded Nairaland, because of which, not only can we read about all these events, but we also get to see how Nigerians reacted to them as they happened. Seun intended to create an online forum for people to report breaking news, share their experiences and opinions, and ask questions. Within two years, the platform grew to over 100,000 registered users. In eight years, the membership strength rose to a million, and that number has more than tripled today.
Nairaland was how Nigerians, home and abroad, interacted before Facebook and Twitter went public, and even predates 2go. It was the online village market square, full of strange characters and ideas. Whatever your interests were, you were sure to find people discussing some of them.
In the entertainment forum, you could talk about your favourite songs, movies, and TV shows, recommend books you like, and discuss football and computer games. You could also rant about the things you didn’t enjoy. In the life forum, people were expected to talk about pets, food, health, beauty, family, housework, relationships, cars, politics, and religion. “Are we, or are we not, reaping the dividends of democracy?” said the tagline for the politics sub-forum.
Despite losing some of its files to a hacking incident in 2014, Nairaland is remarkably well-preserved. Its long shelf life means that it also serves as a form of archive for news articles whose original publications can no longer be accessed. On the website, you will still find posts dating back to its founding year. With the help of the Wayback Machine, you can find many of the missing pieces and scroll through a timeline of publications like a time-travelling archaeologist.
For a country that’s only three generations old, a 20-year leap into the past can be quite revealing. So, what can we learn from two decades-old posts and conversations on Nairaland?